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— A — 

Moonshiner’s Folly 

and OTHER STORIES 

BY 

HANNIBAL ALBERT COMPTON 



BOSTON 

THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc. 




Copyrighted 1916 

By HANNIBAL ALBERT COMPTON 
Rights Reserved 





FEB 26 1916 


©CLA420910 


DEDICATION 

To My Lifelong Friend, 

JOHN H. MATNEY, 

who, unlike most other mountaineers, sees 
the grandeur and glory of the hills; who 
exults in spring at the twitter of nesting 
birds; who enjoys the summer and the 
beauty thereof, and reads the lesson of the 
falling leaf; who loves Nature, her God, 
her works, her laws, and who loves all these 
in loving his fellow man — who serves these 
by serving man. To him this book is dedi- 
cated in grateful remembrance by the 
author. 


FOREWORD 

The last decade has witnessed a great 
awakening in the hills — both moral and in- 
tellectual. Schools and books are increas- 
ing rapidly, and nowhere else is knowl- 
edge acquired with greater facility than in 
the Southern mountains. Some of the 
brightest geniuses of all time have, for lack 
of advantage, gone uncultured and untu- 
tored through life, and many of these have 
ended their existence in the penitentiary or 
on the gallows. For more than a century 
the mountaineer has been almost secure 
from the law, and the imperfections pecul- 
iar to all mankind have induced him to take 
advantage of his isolation. On the aver- 
age, the mountaineer has been the pioneer 
living out of season. For years the pio- 
neer’s life has been his life. A century 
worked few changes in mountain environ- 
ments. 

Born and reared in log cabins, with huge 
cracks and great open fire-places, he has 
suffered none from bad ventilation. Stran- 
gers to society, the women have never been 
the victims to tight lacing, but have grown 
up strong and robust, as a woman should. 

The mountaineer obeys one Scriptural 
command, at least: “Be fruitful and multi- 


ply;^ hence, one reason for health and pov- 
erty. After more than a hundred years of 
living close to Nature, what else could be 
expected but a strong, powerful race? A 
strong body is a good house for a healthy 
soul to live in; therefore, it is only natural 
that, within a very short time, a great race 
of intellectual as well as physical giants must 
people the old hills. 

The day of the mountain man has already 
dawned. He is already making his mark. 
The mountain boy goes out to the univer- 
sity and carries home the medal. The 
mountain girl, with her natural beauty, her 
roses fanned by mountain breezes, becomes 
acquainted with society, and captures the 
heart of the aristocrat. In this way the 
health and strength of the hills is being dif- 
fused into the outside world. 

Time is now beginning to work changes — 
almost incredible changes. The fierce old 
feudist and clansman is no more. The 
strong arm of law has pierced the once im- 
penetrable barriers of rhododendron and 
cliff and reached right into the lair of the 
moonshiner and dragged the offender out. A 
great reformation is progressing. The 
mountain population is fast growing to be a 
most potent factor in the country’s civiliza- 
tion. 

Some writers have made it appear that 
pure love is almost unknown in the hills. 
But such is not the case. In no other sec- 
tion is there less sexual vice. No other 
place in the world can boast of a higher 


class of female virtue or maternal chastity. 
Lewdness is the one unpardonable sin with 
all respectable mountain mothers. Freedom 
of the sexes has, indeed, a very narrow scope 
with them. 

In the stories contained in this volume I 
have endeavored to paint mountain life as 
it is. All the heroes, being just plain na^ 
tives of the hills, have accomplished noth- 
ing extraordinary. None have yet risen to 
dizzy heights of fame ; but some are filling 
very important posts. Some have been 
elected to Congress, and a few may have been 
chosen Governor of their respective states ; 
but such are rare exceptions. The dialect 
used in these tales is a true reproduction. 
My characters speak it just as it is spoken 
in the section in which the scenes are laid. 

“The Legend of Oakview” and “The 
Spook Chimney” do not properly belong to 
this collection. I have used them merely to 
swell the volume to a uniform thickness. 
All the others are mere glimpses of the 
crude civilization of the hills. In handling 
the subjects, I have tried to be true and im- 
partial ; therefore, with the hope of pleas- 
ing the reading public, and with some ap- 
prehensions, I must confess, I submit this 
little “Sketch Book” of mountain life. 

The Author. 


CONTENTS 


Dedication 

Foreword 

A Moonshiner’s Folly 

A Pauper’s Rise 

The Husking Bee That Decided 

A Spook Chimney 

The Legend of Oakview 

Mountain Worshipers 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY. 


CHAPTER I. 

W HEN the stars had come out, she 
went as usual to the old grave- 
yard on top of the Knob. Two 
sisters and a brother had been laid up 
there to rest before she was born, and just 
a year ago her mother, heart-broken and 
weary, had been buried there. 

Her father would not be at home that 
night. Floyd had come to take his supper, 
and they would stay at the distillery. She 
could stay at her mother’s grave as long as 
she wished. The Knob rose almost ab- 
ruptly above the cabin and the grave-yard 
was on its summit. 

She reached the gate panting and flushed 
from her climb. Before entering, she 
paused and looked over the wretched pal- 
ings at the neglected graves. A hog, 
frightened at her approach, uttered a fierce 
grunt and disappeared in the brush. 

When she reached the grave, she sat 
down on a sandstone, wrapped her skirt 
tightly about her bare legs, and began to 
sing: “O, Father, do not ask me why the 
tears roll down my cheeks.” 


10 A MOONSHINE IT S FOLLY 

The night was warm and nearly still. 
On every slight breeze the sweet perfume 
of roses was wafted to her from little Tom- 
mie Garland’s grave. Uncle Jack had in- 
closed his baby’s grave with a nice paling, 
and had planted roses inside the inclosure. 
Would her own father ever do the same to 
show his respect for his and her loved ones? 
No; he seemed to care nothing for them nor 
for her. He would do nothing but make 
mean whiskey ; and, worse than that, he had 
got Floyd interested in that ruinous trade. 
She had talked and talked to them, and it 
made her want to lie down by her mother 
to think that her advice was so coldly ig- 
nored. Child as she was, Flora Wins- 
ton never tired of admonishing her erring 
father and wayward brother against their 
sinful folly. 

From her position she could look down 
the dark cove to her right and see the 
light from the distillery. How it glared up 
at her through the darkness ! Her blood 
froze at the thought of her loved ones 
down there in that deep, dark hole — hell. 

As she sat there she thought it would be 
much better if they were sleeping there by 
her angel mother. 

Again she repeated the lines of “The 
Drunkard’s Child,” and dampened her dress 
with tears. She turned uneasily and looked 
over at the Divide. Uncle Jack Garland’s 
house was darkly outlined against the pale 


AND OTHER STORIES 


11 


sky. On beyond the Divide the hills of 
West Virginia stretched in limitless acres, 
but lay dark under a moonless sky. A 
strange, vague foreboding of fear had some- 
how taken possession of her, but she feared 
not for herself. 

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and 
looked blankly into the black shadows of 
the surrounding woods. A whippoorwill 
perched himself on the paling and began to 
whistle out his weird song. An owl thun- 
dered in his voice of terror on the Divide, 
and myriads of fireflies filled the air with 
their tiny candles. 

Now and then she thought she could hear 
low thunder. The sound came nearer. She 
strained her eyes looking vainly down the 
intersecting spur, but could see nothing. 
She knew not why, but she was frightened. 
All day that vague, nameless fear had 
haunted her, and now she was growing al- 
most frantic. It was plain now that the 
sounds were of hoofs, for their clatter could 
be distinctly heard on the hard clay path. 
For a few minutes the hoof-beats ceased, 
then six dark horsemen glided noiselessly 
by the dilapidated cemetery. A little be- 
yond the corner all rode into the bushes 
and tethered their horses. After an inaud- 
ible consultation, they returned to the path 
and began to grope their way down the 
peak. 

"Who can they be,” said the child to her- 


12 A MOONSHINE IT S FOLLY 

self. She could not remember seeing so 
many come together to the still before ; and 
then why did they leave their horses on 
top? Others had always ridden down. It 
was all to her a little strange, and yet noth- 
ing very remarkable after all. They were 
now almost down to the still. A thought 
came to her which took her breath; and, 
painful as it was, she was angry with her- 
self because it had not come sooner. For 
a moment she stood with speechless horror 
gazing with set eyes into the cove. 

“The Revenues, the Revenues,” she 
screamed, but scarcely had these words es- 
caped her lips when she heard the awful 
words : “Halt, hold ; you are our prisoners.” 

“The Revenues, the Revenues,” she re- 
peated, frantically wringing her hands. “Oh, 
they'll kill daddy an' Floyd jest like they 
did pore ole Lilburn Jones. Lord o' mercy ; 
oh! — ” And then she fell fainting. 

Hastily the distilling apparatus was de- 
stroyed and the whiskey emptied — a large 
amount into the stomachs of the officers. 
Everything being in readiness, the “reven- 
ues,” with their prisoners securely hand- 
cuffed, started up the steep path. The 
climb was less fatiguing than it would 
have been had they not found that strength- 
giving fluid — Mont Winston's “mountain 
dew.” 


AND OTHER STORIES [*' 


13 


"‘Let us stop at the house,” said the cap- 
tured moonshiner, “I want to let Flora 
know.” 

"Come along, old man,” returned one of 
the officers; “we have no time for fooling. 
You can send back word to your folks by 
some o’ your neighbors you're likely to see 
before morning.” 

Mont obeyed the officer, and after a few 
minutes of hard climbing, captors and cap~ 
tives stood by the horses. As the moon- 
shiner passed the graveyard, handcuffed and 
pinioned to a horse, he looked over the pal- 
ings at a mound of yellow earth, and a 
large tear rolled down his rugged cheek. 
Had he seen the prostrate form of his 
child lying there by the mound, it might 
have been left to the strength of the ropes 
to prevent his falling to the ground. He 
lifted his shackled hands and wiped his 
eyes, looked down into the cove that for 
months had been his home, and tried to be 
satisfied with his fate. As the cavalcade 
rounded a curve in the path, two men 
stepped from behind a tree and walked in 
silence before the horses. About two 
miles down the ridge the horses were tied 
to a rickety fence, and the two men led the 
way into a log cabin. 

When Flora regained consciousness, ev- 
erything about her was quiet. The whip- 
poorwill had flown ; the owl had hushed, but 


14 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


the fireflies continued to streak the air with 
light. A few smouldering brands could 
still be distinguished through the bushes 
lying around the ruined distillery. She 
thought that she had awakened from a ter- 
rible dream. She remembered having 
heard the awful words : “Halt, hold ; you 
are our prisoners,” and then she knew it to 
be a reality. She uttered a frenzied groan 
and sat down on the stone to think. The 
officers had caught her father and brother 
at the still and had carried them away. 
Yes, they had carried them away, and 
would put them in jail where they would be 
kept until their trial. And then, where 
would they go? This was her father’s 
third offense and Floyd’s second. Twice 
had her father been sentenced to jail, and 
twice had he stayed there until he had al- 
most died for want of fresh air. 

Mont Winston was a mountaineer, and 
confinement, to him, was worse than the 
cage is to the bird. Floyd had been there 
once, too, and had come back wan and pale. 
This time they might be sent away to a 
terrible prison. She could not remember 
its name, but she called it the “pen.” Yes, 
they would be sent, most surely, to the pen, 
and for several years perhaps. What 
would become of her? The neighbors 
would send her to the poorhouse. Yes, to 
the poorhouse ; and she would rather go 
with Mont and Floyd to the pen than go 


AND OTHER STORIES 


15 


there. Oh, a thousand times to the pen, 
rather than go to the poorhouse. She 
wished she had gone down to the still and 
helped her father. If she had done that, 
they would have taken her away with him 
and Floyd. But no, they would not have 
sent her to the pen, for she was only a lit- 
tle girl ; and, besides, that would have been 
her first offense. She was now glad she 
had not been there. 

A sudden thought came to her: Uncle 
Jack had always liked her father. Yes, 
they had always been friends; and since 
her father and Morgan Lambert had dis- 
solved partnership, Uncle Jack Garland had 
been his only friend. The old man had not 
been friendly to his trade, but had been con- 
stantly trying to persuade him to give up 
making whiskey and go to work as he once 
did. And now she would go to Uncle 
Jack’s. Perhaps he could do something. 
His house was just over on the Divide, but 
the night was too dark and the woods were 
too rough to go across the cove. She must 
go around the ridge, and it was fully three 
miles around. Utterly disregarding her 
own safety, she leaped like a hare and ran 
swiftly up the narrow road. Before she had 
gone a mile, she thought she would be 
obliged to lie down and give it all up ; but 
that terrible prison and the cruel poor- 
house flashed into her mind and urged her 
on faster than ever. Up hill and down she 


16 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


sped, her long, beautiful hair standing out 
behind. When she came to the old school- 
house at the forks of the road, she paused. 
How her heart pounded in her breast ! It 
seemed that hundreds of tiny hearts were 
beating all over her body. Her face was 
aflame and the perspiration streamed down 
and hurt her eyes. A faint illumination in 
the east heralded the coming of the moon, 
and a screech owl called in his strange, 
shivering tones down in Deerlick Hollow. 
She was still in sight of Uncle Jack’s and 
a light was shining through the window. 
She thought she could hear the sweet 
strains of Uncle Jack’s violin, but perhaps 
it was a ringing in her ears. 

She started again and soon descended 
the long slant that led down from the old 
schoolhouse. She had a mile yet to go, and 
that was up hill the greater part of the way. 
Could she ever get there ? She feared not ; 
but, with rapid-beating heart and bulging 
veins, she labored on. To her left she could 
now see the Knob. The old graveyard was 
white with moonlight. How black the two 
tall cedars looked standing over there like 
lonely guards for the dead! 

As she passed the barn, Uncle Jack’s big 
black horses nickered to her. That was the 
last sound she heard until morning. A long 
slant led from the barn up to the house. 
Reaching the door, she fell on her face in- 
side. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


17 


“Lord o’ mercy,” exclaimed Aunt Nellie, 
dropping her pipe, “what’s the matter with 
the child?” 

“Somethin’s up,” said Uncle Jack, laying 
aside his Bible and going to the fainting 
child. He lifted her limp form from the 
floor and laid her on the bed. 

“Let me git the camphire quick,” said 
Aunt Nellie. She went to the tall man- 
tel and brought a bottle of camphor which 
she uncorked and held to the child’s nose. 

“Thank the Lord,” said the kind old wo- 
man, “she’s a-comin’ to.” 

But Flora never opened her eyes. She 
began to breathe with apparent ease, but 
lay in a stupor until morning. 

“Jack,” said Aunt Nellie, “wake Roy up 
an’ send him over to Mont’s to see what’s 
the matter. Mont has either got killed or 
the revenues has got him. Oh, ain’t this 
awful, ain’t this awful?” And a tear rolled 
down her kind old face. 

The boy was fast asleep, but the old man 
soon aroused him, and he was ready to 
start. 

Roy was a stout, handsome lad of fifteen, 
with intelligent, laughing eyes and chestnut 
brown hair. His broad, manly forehead 
gave evidence of a strong brain behind. 
Though broad-shouldered and square, he 
stood erect and had a very graceful walk 
which everybody admired. His obedience 
to his parents, his unselfish devotion to his 


18 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


twin sister, Maude, and his kindness to his 
playmates had won him a place high in the 
estimation of all the neighbors except old 
Josiah Martin, a very pious man in his own 
eyes, who hated all the Garlands because 
Uncle Jack kept a fiddle and sometimes in- 
vited the young people to h/is house to 
dance. 

The boy started instantly to the moon- 
shinef's cabin ; and, reaching it, found it de- 
serted. Then, going down to the distillery, he 
knew the truth. As he passed the cabin on 
his return, a man stepped from the door 
with something on his shoulder and moved 
silently up the path before him. All the 
way around the Divide he tried to think 
who it could be plundering the unfortunate 
moonshiner's cabin. 

After an absence of two hours, he re- 
turned and rehearsed to his parents what 
he had learned: The still had been cut; 
the tubs had been destroyed ; the still house 
had been torn down, and everything was 
plain enough that Mont and Floyd had 
been arrested and carried away. But one 
mystery could not be unraveled : None 
could see why anybody had the right to 
plunder a man's house, even if he was a 
moonshiner. 

Neither Uncle Jack, Aunt Nellie nor Roy 
slept any more that night. All sat in the 
room with the insensible child until the sun 
brought to earth another summer day. 


CHAPTER II. 


F ROM Uncle Jack’s house one may 
look for miles and miles out over rug- 
ged mountains covered with verdant 
forests; and a glorious sight it was the 
morning after the arrest, when the sun 
peeped over Great Flat-top Mountain, scat- 
tering the heavy fog into chaos and illum- 
inating the intervening hills and hollows 
with a fire of impenetrable brilliance. The 
sky was absolutely clear, and when the fog 
had been driven away, the summer birds be- 
gan to pour out their notes of gladness. 

Flora had roused from her stupor, but 
gave signs of intense suffering and uncon- 
sciousness. Aunt Nellie prepared a cot for 
the child on the shady porch, and Uncle 
Jack tenderly laid her on it. The cool 
morning air seemed to soothe her for a 
time. She lay perfectly still, with her blue 
eyes fixed on the old man as he tuned his 
violin. 

Uncle Jack looked a pleasing type of the 
better class of mountaineers as he held his 
instrument upright on his knee. He had 
already lived out his allotted three score 
and ten, but was quite active and vigorous. 
He wore a short, snow-white beard and long 


20 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


hair, which, however, had not suffered so 
much from the bleaching of many years. 
Aunt Nellie sat by the cot calmly smoking 
her pipe. Now and then a beautiful female 
figure tripped noiselessly about the house. 
This was their only girl — Roy’s twin sis- 
ter. 

When his violin was in readiness, the old 
man drew his bow slowly across the strings 
a few times, and then began to play “Home, 
Sweet Home.” The sweet, tender melody 
floated out and tranquilized all who heard 
it. Roy, who was at work in the field, in- 
voluntarily stopped the horse in the furrow 
and listened to the music so sweet and 
touching. A red bird, who had been warn- 
ing Uncle Jack of coming rain, flew away 
ashamed of his voice. 

When the old man stopped playing, Flora 
raised her head. Aunt Nellie wiped her 
eyes on her apron. The old man looked at 
her, and her eyes were overflowing with 
tears. 

“Oh, Jack,” she said, “that bow teches 
my heart jest the same as it does the strings 
on the fiddle. ‘Home, sweet home/ it says; 
but this pore little child ain’t got no home. 
She’s got no mother, no father, no people — 
oh, Jack, ain’t it awful? Our children have 
alius had a home, and humble as it is, it 
has kept them comfortable. But this pore 
little thing, if she don’t die, ain’t got no 
place to go. Jack, we must not let her go 


AND OTHER STORIES 


21 


to the porehouse — :we kin take keer of her.” 

"Jest as you say, Nellie,” returned the 
old man kindly. 

The suffering child turned her big blue 
eyes wistfully toward the old couple and 
said, "Have I been asleep? I heerd mother 
a-singing’ in Heaven. I heerd her a-singin’ 
an’ a-playin’ on her golden harp. She was 
a-singin’ ‘Home, sweet Home.’ That’s the 
song she alius loved so well. What a 
sweet home Heaven must be. I wish I 
could go there to mother, but I don’t guess 
they’d let me come there, fer I’m a drunk- 
ard’s child. They might not ‘a’ let her 
come, but Daddy was not so bad then. Oh, 
Daddy is a bad man; but I hope he’ll quit 
drinkin’ an’ stillin’, an, then me an’ him can 
go to mother in Heaven.” 

"Pore little gal,” said old Jack, and a tear 
glistened in one of his eyes. 

The red bird came back to resume his 
warning. A humming bird buzzed around 
the morning-glories on the porch railing, 
and a cat-bird squeaked in his piping voice 
down in the orchard. The sun had climbed 
nearly to his zenith. The intense heat had 
absorbed the moisture of field and forest, 
leaving the earth dry and the corn wilting. 
Flora had become quiet, and the utmost 
silence reigned over the farm. Old Jack 
was lighting his pipe when an angry "gee” 
came up from the Divide road. Going to 
the corner of the house, he saw Morgan 


22 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

Lambert and his stalwart son Jake coming 
up the ridge. Their old mule was hitched 
to a sled and Jake was driving. Morgan 
walked behind. When they came up to the 
gate, Morgan called out: “Hello, Uncle 
Jackson, I wish ye’d come down an’ he’p 
urs a little. We’ve got a wounded boy 
here, an’ he wanted to be fotch aroun’ here 
to you. Of course, hit may look a little 
bad fer ye to keep ’im, as he’s a moonshin- 
in’ drunkard; but I don’t see jest how ye 
can turn ’im off, fer they’ve got his pap an’ 
gone with ’im, an’ he aint got nobody to 
see to ’im. I would 'a’ kep’ ’im myself, but 
as I’m a church-member, — ye know me an’ 
Jake both j’ined at the last revival at the 
schoolhouse — an, as I thought it waren’t be- 
comin’ of a Christian to have sich a boy 
in his house, I hav fotch ’im to yo’ place. 
I knowed you didn’t claim to have no re- 
ligion ; so I ’lowed you wouldn’t mind to 
keep the boy a spell.” 

Morgan lifted his hat and scratched his 
bald head, then continued: “The revenues, 
they stayed at my house last night — they 
did — an’ along in the night Floyd tried to 
get away from ’em, an’ Mr. Field, one o’ 
the officers, shot ’im a little to keep ’im 
from runnin.’ ” 

Roy had now come up. “Who done 
this?” he asked sternly, looking down at 
the pale face of his friend. 

“Well, Roy,” returned Morgan, “you 


AND OTHER STORIES 23 

know none of urs ever gits perfect. Hit’s 
a little bad to tell on the revenues, but, as 
I’m a church member, an’ a-tryin’ to live 
right — God bein’ my Helper — I’m a-goin’ to 
tell the truth. The revenues, they all got 
drunk — but you couldn’t blame ’em murch 
fer it, fer it was on Mont’s own licker. 
Hit’s quite nateral ’at he should suffer 
from hit’s consequences. I aint murch ofi 
a Scriptorian, but I b’lieve the Good Book 
says if a feller digs a pit fer another feller 
to fall in, he will fall in it his se’f. Now, if 
Mont likes Floyd ha’f as well as I do Jake 
thar, hit’ll hurt him wusser ’an ef hit had 
been him shot.” 

"When did you quit diggin’ pits, Morg?” 
asked Roy with sarcasm. 

For a moment Morgan’s face wore a mix- 
ture of anger and surprise. “Ef stillin’ is 
what ye mean,” he answered, "I’ve quit 
good six months ago.” 

"That was what I meant,” said Roy, "for 
I thought that was what you meant when 
you was talkin’ about Mont.” 

"Well,” explained Morgan, "I quit good 
six months ago — I had quit a right smart 
while before I j’ined the Church.” 

"You quit when you and Mont Winston 
fell out and dissolved partnership,” said 
Roy with warmth. 

"What wuz we pardners in?” retorted 
Morgan. 


24 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


“Why,” returned Roy, “ain’t it a fact that 
you and Mont was partners for a long time 
in that big still that you hauled from 
Wyoming in a sled? Have you forgot all 
about you and Mont and Floyd and big 
saintly Jake there a-stillin’ up all the corn 
you all had, and how you come dad-burned 
nigh starvin’ to death the next spring?” 

“That’s my business,” said Morgan with 
rage. 

“I know it is, Morg,” said Roy, “but 
come on and let’s carry Floyd in before you 
lose your religion.” 

Morgan made no reply, and in a short 
time Floyd had been laid on the bed. 

“An’ the Lord have mercy on us all,” ex- 
claimed Aunt Nellie. “Two o’ Mon’t chil- 
dren at th p’int o’ death, an’ him a-lookin’ 
.right into the doors of the penitentiary.” 

“Mother,” said Roy, “the officers got 
drunk and shot Floyd. What do you think 
of such officers?” 

“God deliver me from sich officers,” an- 
swered the old woman. “They’re worse 
than the prisoners. Mont Winston was a 
good-hearted man, an’ stillin’ is the worst 
thing I ever knowed him to be guilty uv. 
Floyd here — pore boy — had the example set 
before him, an’ I’m goin’ to put all the 
blame on Mont.” 

Roy laughed. “Mother,” he said, “you’ll 
offend Morg, for you know he used to be a 
moonshiner.” 


AND OTHER STORIES 


25 


“Yes, but I reckon Morgan's quit for 
good." 

“That's what I’ve done, young man," 
said Lambert, “an’ thar aint no danger o$ 
yer ma offendin' me, but I won't be so 
shore about you." 

“Now, Morg," said the boy, “if you don’t 
quit gettin' mad so easy, you'll have to go 
back and get the circuit-rider to pour some 
more water on your head." 

Morgan turned scarlet, but said nothing. 

After he had teased Morgan until he 
could hardly hold his anger, he turned to 
Jake and said: “What was that you toted 
out o’ Mont’s house last night on your 
shoulders ?" 

Jake shuffled his feet uneasily, and, ris- 
ing from his chair, said, “Let’s be a-goin', 

pa <? ” 

“That ain't answerin' my question," per- 
sisted Roy. “What was that you carried 
out of Mont's house last night on your 
shoulder?" 

“I — I never — I never carried nothin’ out, 
did I pap?" stammered Jake. “I weren't 
thar — I’ll swear I weren't — was I, pap?" 
And he began to move awkwardly toward 
the door. 

“No; Jake was at home all last night," 
said Morgan, pulling his tight overalls 
down over his crooked shins, and rising. 

“Come over, Uncle Jack," he said, step- 
ping out. 


26 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


“Better stay till after dinner, Morgan," 
said the old man. 

“Murch erbleeged, we’ve stayed too long 
now,” and with this, he and his tall son 
went down to the gate. Turning the mule 
and sled before them, they started home. 

Roy went to the window and watched 
them until they were out of sight. When 
they were gone, he felt that two of the 
worst characters in the hills had just been 
in his home. 

“I can see through Morg,” he said, step- 
ping away from the window. He brought 
the revenues to his house and showed 
them Mont’s still because he don’t like him. 
And I can see through that big gander- 
shanked Jake. He is the one I saw comm’ 
out of Mont’s house last night, and it was 
a keg of whiskey he had on his shoulder. 
And it was on this whiskey that the revenues 
got drunk.” 

Floyd, who had been sleeping since he 
had been brought into the house, had awak- 
ened. “That’s jest hit,” he said. “Morg an’ 
Jake both come to the top of the hill yan 
side of the graveyard with ’em, fer they was 
waiting fer ’em behind a tree, an’ they took 
’em right to their house. The revenues got 
purty full down at the still before they 
started with us, but when we got to Morg’s, 
they wanted more. Dad told ’em whar 
they could find it, an’ they sent Jake atter 
it. He thought if he could git ’em all 


AND OTHER STORIES 


27 


down drunk, we mought git away. So they 
drunk it down like water an’ they all laid 
down on the floor. I thought they was all 
asleep, an’ was jest about to git the door 
open when that Fields boy — the little devil 
— shot me in the thigh.” 

After dinner old Jack picked up his vio- 
lin and again took his seat on the porch. 
For an hour the melodious notes thrilled 
all that heard them. 

The evening was intensely hot. Bright 
thunder clouds swelled up in the west. A 
few muttering groans and a cooling breeze 
told that a storm was approaching. Nu- 
merous small clouds joined forces, and soon 
the western sky was a solid mass of dark 
mist. The light of the sun was shut out, 
and the black cloud was streaked with 
lightning. The rumbling mass rolled stead- 
ily on, and soon the storm burst down in all 
its fury. The wind blew in hurricanes, and 
great trees were torn from the ground by 
its force. The air became almost as dark as 
night. Vivid lightning flashed and deafen- 
ing thunder crashed, shaking the house to 
its foundation. 

The storm, furious as it was, was but a 
zephyr when compared with that which 
raged in the wounded boy’s heart. Bitter 
remorse, shame and regrets surged in his 
soul. Oh, that he had listened to his sister! 
But it was vain to wish. It was too late 
now. Fie had been caught at the still, and 


28 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

now he must necessarily go to the peniten- 
tiary to pay the penalty of his folly. And, 
besides, he was dangerously shot. That was 
a cowardly act. He knew that ; but what 
had been the cause? Their still had led to it 
all. Remorse tortured him ; his leg pained 
him much, and he rolled and tossed in bed. 

Until long after the storm had abated, the 
rain continued to fall, but before sundown a 
gentle wind scattered the clouds into frag- 
ments. A rainbow appeared in the east and 
the sun set in a cloudless west. The earth 
in its dripping garments looked fresh and 
beautiful. A wood-thrush began his even- 
ing song down in the head of War Cove, and 
night, with all its sweetness and peace, set' 
tied again over the quiet hills. 


CHAPTER III. 


W HEN Morgan and Jake returned 
home, the “revenues” and their 
captive had gone. With deep re- 
gret, Mont watched the Great Divide fade 
from sight. He thought he would be a much 
older man before he should see it again. 
Often, as he trudged handcuffed before the 
officers, he thought of his little girl who had 
always pleaded so patiently with him. Ah, 
had he heeded her words, he would not be 
the shackled, disgraced prisoner that he 
was. Often he turned his head to look at 
his familiar hills that were receding. Per- 
haps he was looking at them for his last 
time. A hard day’s tramp lay before him, 
for he was allowed to ride but little; and 
when he did ride, he had to take the place 
behind one of the officers. No happiness 
stirred in the breast of the unfortunate man ; 
all was regret and shame and bitter remorse. 
A hard fate awaited him, and he knew it; 
so he heaved a heavy sigh and went on in 
silence. 

About sundown the little party rode into 
the county-seat, which contained the jail 
and court-house and a few straggling resi- 
dences. The prisoner was locked securely 


30 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


in jail. After a scanty meal he tried to 
sleep. His bed was hard, and fleas and bed- 
bugs tortured him all night. But this was 
not the only reason for his sleeplessness. He 
was thinking of the cruel prison that 
awaited him. His way was now clear be- 
fore him. He could trace it by the Chancery 
Commissioner and the United States Court, 
and from there to a cruel Federal prison in 
a far away Southern state. Then he thought 
again of his children. Floyd was shot, but 
he knew not how badly. He knew that if 
the boy recovered, his fate would be little 
less terrible than his own. What stung him 
so was the thought that he, himself, was re- 
sponsible for all these calamities visited so 
sorely upon him. He thought of Flora, and 
her future troubled him greatly. He feared 
that the neighbors would suffer her to go 
to the poorhouse, and he would rather she 
would die, than be reduced to such circum- 
stances. 

Th officers had brought along with them 
a good supply of Mont’s mean corn whiskey. 
After a hearty meal in the little hotel they 
proceeded to get very drunk. The unhappy 
man in the cell could hear their drunken 
revelry; and, for the first time in his life, 
he gave his unprejudiced judgment against 
the traffic which had brought him and his 
family to their ruin. 

Morning dawned in glorious splendor ; 
but little light was shed into the dingy cell 


AND OTHER STORIES 


31 


of the moonshiner, but less still into his sad 
soul. He went to the window and looked 
out over the little town. Everywhere he 
could see happy, contented people going 
cheerfully to their work. Well-fed, well- 
dressed children were romping in the 
streets. Then, in fancy, he saw his own 
little girl, shabbily-dressed and poorly fed; 
but he did not know that she was then dan- 
gerously ill. Without this knowledge his 
heart melted within him, and he looked 
between the rusted bars with tearful eyes. 
The jailer brought in his breakfast about 
eight o'clock, but he could not eat. He was 
sick and sin-tortured, and weakened by the 
loss of sleep. He turned sulkily from the 
officer, sat down on a stool and buried his 
face in his hands. The jailor left the food 
and closed the door with a bang; but the 
town clock struck nine, ten, eleven and 
twelve, and still the food remained untasted. 
All that morning he sat there bent down 
with remorse, thinking of the happiness 
that might have been his and contemplating 
his mournful future. 

In the evening he was taken before the 
Chancery Commissioner; and being unable 
to give bail, he was again committed to jail 
to await the next term of United States 
Circuit Court, which convened at Abingdon 
in the coming August. 

For several days he sat and gazed through 
the iron-barred window, regretting, think- 


32 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


ing — thinking of his once happy home on 
the Divide. He could see himself as he once 
was — a strong, healthy young man. Then he 
would think of the graves on the Knob— 
the graves that held the dust of those who 
had loved him. Often he would stand and 
look through the bars, watching the pigeons 
circle round the court-house tower, and lis- 
ten to their cooing as they strutted around 
their young. But all the while he was 
thinking, thinking. He lived over again his 
life. His recollections would go back to 
boyhood, and for a moment he would be 
happy. He lived again his early married 
life, before the illicit whiskey traffic had 
ruined him, and for moments together he 
would dwell, in fancy, with his young, 
happy wife. Then these fond recollections 
would vanish from his mind, and a great 
black gulf would roll up in their place. He 
looked^ into the abyss. He knew that his 
health was well nigh spent. Exposure to 
weather and the poisonous product of the 
still each had had a share in making him an 
invalid, and now trouble would give him the 
final blow. 

One morning the news was brought him 
that Floyd and Flora were not expected to 
live. He listened calmly to the end of the 
story, and then, for the first time in his life, 
he bowed his head in prayer. Earnestly he 
confessed to his God that he was the most 
miserable of all creatures. He asked Him 


AND OTHER STORIES 


33 


to grant him forgiveness, if not too late, and 
to help him bear the burdens which were 
crushing him into the very earth. He ended 
with a fervent appeal for his wounded boy, 
asking Him to show the lad the error of his 
way and to lead him to the path of Life. 

Days passed on, and still the moonshiner 
spent much time in prayer and meditation. 
He was entirely changed. He now hated 
the folly of the moonshiner as much as he 
Jiad once loved it. But, notwithstanding his 
complete repentance, he was indicted be- 
fore the grand jury at Abingdon; and, after 
a speedy trial, was sentenced five years to 
the Federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia. 


CHAPTER IV. 


M ORNING found the wounded lad in 
a painful condition. His leg had be- 
come frightfully swollen and very 
feverish. The wound was much inflamed; 
and, from all indications, blood-poison had 
set in. All day Aunt Nellie had tried her 
.‘good old household remedies, but to no 
avail. He continued to grow worse. Flora 
had had a good, long sleep, and she woke up 
much better. 

Night came on and Floyd's condition was 
growing so alarming that it was decided to 
send for Dr. Reece. He had for a long 
time been the family physician for the Gar- 
lands ; and had gained state-wide fame as a 
surgeon. He was located at Richlands, a 
distance of fifteen miles. Roy could make 
it there and back before daylight. 

After a good supper, the boy mounted 
one of the big black horses and started in 
quest of the surgeon. All around the ridge 
he was thinking of the little sick girl who 
had come to his home for protection. He 
felt so sorry for her, that more than once 
his eyes became moist. He had known her 
since she was a tiny baby; but always, un- 
til tonight, she had been just the drunkard's 


AND OTHER STORIES 


35 


child — just the moonshiner's “little gal.” 
His parents had always liked Mont, be- 
cause he had once been a respectable citi- 
zen ; but since he had become a moonshiner, 
they had had nothing for him but mild re- 
buke and the advice to go back to his old 
way of living. They had never given up 
hope that he would be brought ultimately 
to see the ruin he was bringing on himself 
and family, so they still respected him and 
said that he was a kind-hearted man, and 
that there were many worse than he, even 
if he was a moonshiner. Notwithstanding 
all this, Roy had always thought himself a 
little better than anyone who made whisky, 
(and perhaps he was right) and had been of 
the opinion that he was a little above any 
moonshiners child. But tonight he de- 
cided differently. He arrived at the con- 
clusion that the drunkard's child was as 
good as anyone. He know how patiently 
she had always implored her father to give 
up his wicked life, and how untiringly she 
had begged Floyd to be a better boy. And 
now, that the arrest of her father and brother 
had come so near killing her, he was con- 
fident that in the breast of the little moun- 
tain girl throbbed one of the warmest and 
tenderest of hearts. To-night the great 
blue eyes with their long, silky lashes 
seemed to gaze into his inmost soul. The 
little girl meant something to him — some- 
thing which he could not understand. The 


36 A M 0 ON SHINE IT S FOLLY 

innocent, pale face was constantly before 
him, and seemed to be pleading to him to 
help her father and brother out of trouble. 
Never before had anyone made such an im- 
pression on his mind ; so he resolved that 
from that night hence he would help that 
little girl. He would help her to accomplish 
what she set out to do — to live a beautiful 
life. 

He urged the big horse onward, and soon 
he was winding his tortuous way down Big 
Creek. The road was rough and the night 
was dark. But it mattered not for the 
roughness of the road nor the darkness of 
the night, that homeless little girl with her 
big, innocent eyes was ever before him. 

He rode up to the gate of Dr. Reece’s 
yard, and after a few loud “helloes” he 
brought the physician to the door. After 
being told that he was wanted, the doctor 
gave a ready assent, and in the course of a 
few minutes he was ready to start. Three 
hours of hard riding brought them to Uncle 
Jack’s just as the first streaks of dawn were 
stealing in from the east. 

All night Floyd had suffered untold 
agony, and morning again found him in a 
very painful condition — still growing 
worse. After a prolonged examination of 
the wound, Dr. Reece took a chair and 
gravely lighted a cigarette. He shook his 
head doubtfully and declared that the case 
was a difficult one. 


AND. OTHER STORIES 


37 


“Uncle Jack,” said he, “there is but one 
show for the boy, and that is an operation. 
Blood-poison has set up in a violent way ; 
and, considering the intense heat of the 
weather, I .should say that the wound is 
very dangerous.” 

After breakfast he made ready for the 
operation. 

With a little instruction from the doctor, 
Roy administered the chloroform with as 
much judgment as a surgeon. The opera- 
tion was carried through, and Floyd endured 
it much better than the average man does. 
The surgeon changed his opinion, and be- 
fore he left he said that, with proper care, 
the boy would recover. 

From the moment the operation was fin- 
ished Floyd grew better; but for many a 
day he was forced to keep his bed or sit 
with his leg lying on a pillow. Often he 
talked to Maude Garland and Roy, or lis- 
tened to the sweet strains of Uncle Jack’s 
violin. He loved it better than any music 
he had ever heard; and while still unable 
to stir, he even learned to play himself. 

He heard of his father’s sentence with 
sorrow; but he believed that when he 
should recover, his own would be little 
less. Flora, who had now almost recovered 
from that awful shock, said not a word 
when she heard where they had sent him. 
She only turned those great, blue, innocent 
eyes on anyone who chanced to be talking 


38 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

of the affair, and her pale face would blush 
with shame. Almost every day she would 
stroll through the fields, and sometimes to 
her mother’s grave where she would sit for 
hours together, gazing out over the broad, 
blue expanse of hills. Those were lonely 
days for her, although she was given every 
comfort that Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie 
could afford; and Maude’s friendship for 
her knew no bounds. But none of these 
could quite erase the gloom from her soul. 
She saw the everlasting ruin her father had 
brought on himself and the misery he had 
brought to her. However hospitable those 
good old people might be to her, it stung 
her still to know that it was done as a deed 
of charity. She had a proud, sensitive 
spirit. She meant to work for the Garlands 
to pay for her keeping. She and Maude 
became fast friends; and often the Garland 
girl would shed tears while listening to the 
sad stories of the moonshiner’s child. 

Floyd continued to grow better. When 
the season of frost had come round again, he 
had laid aside his crutches. But to him, 
too, Justice must needs be meted out. One 
morning when the haze of Indian summer 
hung over the hills like a veil, the authori- 
ties came and took him away. Flora 
watched him disappear in the smoky dis- 
tance, but not one tear did she shed. She 
had now seen her last blood relative go 
from her to a prison pen. What could be 


AND OTHER STORIES 


39 


worse? She no longer imagined death to 
be a grim monster. She would have wel- 
comed him gladly. But the blackest clouds 
must vanish, and the darkest shadows must 
flee away. So it was with the little moun- 
tain girl. As the days passed on, she con- 
sidered her life less seriously and became 
quite cheerful and sweet-tempered. 


CHAPTER V. 


A FTER many weary days in jail, 
Floyd was sentenced to the same Fed- 
eral prison for a period of three 
years. He found his father in delicate 
health. The boy saw at once that he would 
never serve out his term. Numerous gray 
hairs could be distinguished about his tem- 
ples and the top of his head was premature- 
ly bald. He was lean and emaciated and 
the deep blue eyes had lost some of their 
brilliance. He had been in the hospital 
most of the time, and the physicians had 
already advised his pardon. In a few weeks 
the pardon was granted by a President who 
was afterwards assassinated, and the moon- 
shiner bade his convict son an affectionate 
farewell and turned his face toward his be- 
loved home in the hills. 

Mont got off the train at Cedar Bluff and 
found Gordon Martin’s team ready to start 
back with a wagon load of groceries. He 
hired the driver to convey him and his 
meagre baggage to Martin’s store. 

Gordon was a son of old Josiah, and a 
right clever merchant he was. He was also 
post-master. Most of the patrons of his 
store considered him the most important 


AND OTHER STORIES 


41 


person in the neighborhood. His father, old 
Josiah, was a very pious old fellow in his 
own estimation, being a stanch Methodist, 
He conducted a prayer meeting and Sunday 
School in the schoolhouse. He would give 
cheerfully and without a murmur to any 
little local preacher, but for the really poor 
and needy, he had nothing. He always 
wore a blue bandanna handkerchief tied 
over his ears; and his voice was noted 
throughout the hills for its peculiar nasal 
twang. Sometimes he was gay and jovial, 
and sometimes crabbed and harsh ; and 
when he was angry with one he was angry 
with all. No traveler would he entertain 
unless he was some particular friend or a 
Methodist — and all his friends were Metho- 
dists and all Methodists were his friends. 
Gordon, the merchant and post-master, in- 
herited but few of the characteristics of his 
father; but, like old Josiah, he was a devot- 
ed follower of Wesley. He did not inherit 
the old man’s changeable temper. He was 
never morose or moody ; but was always 
ready for a joke, and never took life very 
seriously except when the circuit-rider or 
the Presiding Elder visited him. He was 
very liberal with his neighbors when he 
saw a dollar coming to him by his liberal- 
ity ; but when no money was in sight, he 
could deny anyone of a favor and send him 
away with such a good-natured joke that 
he could not be at all offended. 


42 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

Gordon’s store, which was on the road 
that leads down the Divide, was the resort 
of the young men who would loiter around 
all day there and exchange jokes with the 
good-natured merchant, who would ex- 
change candy and tobacco with them for 
their dimes and nickels. 

The wagon arrived at the store late in 
the afternoon, and the ex-moonshiner walked 
in, a perfect stranger. None were ex- 
pecting him, and so changed was he that 
Gordon merely nodded to him. After pay- 
ing for his transportation, he made himself 
known, and to his surprise, Gordon gave his 
money back. When he had gone, the gen- 
erous merchant suffered a severe rebuke in 
the nasal twang of old Josiah. In tart lan- 
guage the old man informed his son that it 
was no great honor to him to bring a con- 
vict into the community even for pay. 

It was late in the month of April. Mont 
looked about over his old haunts and saw 
everything unchanged. The bursting buds, 
the hum of bees, the songs of birds were 
all tidings of glad spring; but no tidings 
of gladness came to him. Though proud to 
get back to his old hills again, no happiness 
was his. 

It was nearly sundown when he started 
down the Divide to Uncle Jack’s, and dark- 
ness overtook him at the old log school- 
house. There the road forked. He stopped 
and looked down the path which led to his 


AND OTHER STORIES 


43 


t 


own cabin. The old graveyard on the Knob 
was outlined against the gold-illumined sky. 
How dark and silent the two tall cedars 
looked! Near those sighing trees were the 
cheerless graves of his family, and he knew 
that ere long his own would be added to 
the number. He pushed on and reached 
Uncle Jack’s as the family were at supper. 
Notwithstanding his sad change, Flora at 
once knew her father; and, throwing her 
arms around him, she wept with mingled 
joy and grief. 

Mont needed not to have explained why 
he had been pardoned, anyone could read 
the explanation in his hollow cheeks and 
hear it in his violent cough. After relat- 
ing something of his short term in prison, 
he dropped into a peaceful sleep, and not 
until morning dawned did he wake. 


CHAPTER VI. 


T HE summer passed away with few 
events. Morgan Lambert and his tall 
son Jake never once showed them- 
selves about Uncle Jack’s. They were al- 
ways together, and sometimes they would 
spend a day at Gordon Martin’s store. Old 
Josiah had great faith in Morgan’s religion, 
and was continually warning him to be 
careful that he did not fall from Grace. 
Morgan and Jake never failed to appear at 
the prayer meetings ; and the elder Lambert 
was becoming a studious reader of the 
Bible. In his prayers he always asked the 
Lord to make bright the declining days of 
dear old Josiah, and that he might lead his 
class to Endless Bliss. Roy Garland would 
listen to the stories of Morgan’s devout 
Christian life with sarcasm. He could 
never place any confidence in him. He 
boldly declared that he was a sneaking 
hypocrite. 

As the summer advanced Mont Winston 
grew weaker. While the cool September 
nights were changing the leaves to a yel- 
low hue, the White Plague was working the 
same change in the complexion of the ex- 
moonshiner. He was forced to take his bed ; 


AND OTHER STORIES 

and often, for hours, he would lie as still 
as a statue, listening to Flora read the 
Scripture. He would often have Uncle 
Jack sit by the bed and play the old-time 
hymns his wife had loved ; and as he listened 
to the music a smile of satisfaction would 
play about his thin lips. Sometimes, while 
all was quiet, he would sing a whole stanza 
of his favorite hymn: 

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound 
That saved a wretch like me ; 

I once was lost, but now I’m found, 

Was blind, but now I see.” 

He never tired of talking of Christ and 
the mission of mercy on which He had been 
sent to earth; and often as he talked, his 
voice would grow strong and his counte- 
nance would light up with a glorious bright- 
ness. Autumn passed dreamily on; and, 
little by little, the sick man withered away. 
The leaves turned golden and red and flut- 
tered down to their earthly beds. The 
chilly winds that foretell the wintry blast 
began to scatter them about ; and Thanks- 
giving came round again. On the very day 
observed for prayer and thanks Mont Win- 
ston closed his weary- lids and fell asleep. 
On the second day after his death his body 
was laid to rest on the Knob. 

At the burial Flora shed no tears. Though 
sad, she could not cry. She had long expect- 
ed the death of her father, and the end was no 
shock. It is true that when she witnessed 


46 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

the faint struggle with death, she shed 
tears ; but for the last view of him, she had 
prepared herself. She fully believed that 
his sins had been forgiven; and for his fu- 
ture her hope was bright. The one great 
object of her life now was to save Floyd. 
She feared that three years of prison life 
would make a Jean Valjean of him. But 
she longed for his return. She would act 
the part of the Bishop and her unfortunate 
convict brother would yet be saved. 


CHAPTER VII. 


M ONT Winston owned several tracts 
of wild land. Before his death he 
had made his will, conveying all his 
possessions to his two children, except a 
large tract which he deeded to Uncle Jack 
in consideration of the aid and assistance 
rendered his family in their misfortunes. 
Uncle Jack was made administrator and 
guardian for the Winston heirs. He had 
promised the dying man that Flora should 
be sent to school. Mont had made provi- 
sions that one-fourth of his estate be sold 
and the proceeds be used as an educational 
fund for the little girl, should it become 
neccessary to send her away to school. 

A free school was going on in the little 
log house at the forks of the road ; and now, 
that Mont's death had given her nothing to 
do, Flora became a regular pupil. She had 
already attended there two terms, and had 
made more progress than any other child 
who had ever come there to study. On ac- 
count of her shabby clothes and meagre 
lunch, she had always provoked much ridi- 
cule among the other children, who would 
not play with her because she was the 
drunkard's child. In her former school 


48 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

days there, the poor little bashful girl would 
take her lunch basket and go up to the Old 
Signal tree and sit at its roots through the 
entire recess, brooding over her little sad 
life and listening to the gleeful shouts of 
the school children, among whom she could 
find but two friends. But now they did not 
laugh at her clothes. Maude Garland could 
sew nicely, so Flora dressed like the aver- 
age girl. All now except the Martin chil- 
dren spoke kindly to the orphan. The Mar- 
tins would have scolded their children, if 
they had in any way befriended the moon- 
shiner’s daughter. 

The school was couducted by Mrs. Mada 
Stover, the well-educated and accomplished 
wife of a neighboring farmer. She had 
been reared an orphan herself; and by her 
welcome smile and kind words, Flora knew 
that she had found a friend. 

When the school closed Flora had ad- 
vanced in her studies far beyond the ex- 
pectation of her teacher. Many of the 
larger girls and boys had become discour- 
aged, and had declared their determination 
to quit school for good. Many were jealous 
of her advancement, but none laughed at 
her now. Anybody could see that an un- 
usually strong brain lay behind those big, 
pleading, innocent blue eyes. 

Summer came with many roses and other 
fragrant flowers. Beautiful rhododendrons 
put forth their gorgeous colors, and Aunt 


AND OTHER STORIES 


40 


Nellie’s morning-glories bloomed afresh 
each night. After finishing her morning’s 
task, Flora would take her book and stroll 
through the grassy fields to a great locust 
tree where, for hours, she would sit and 
read and dream and gaze down on the silent 
hills. But as the innocent, almost happy 
child contemplated the beauties of these 
hills — her hills — she never once thought of 
the fact that great stores of wealth for her 
lay within their rugged bosoms. 

Roy and Maude, though more studious 
than the average boy or girl, could never 
find the pleasure in their books that Flora 
could. Often while the Garland children 
were in the land of Nod the little orphan 
would sit up by an oil lamp and pore over 
her history or grammar. 

All summer she did Aunt Nellie’s simple 
tasks and diligently continued her studies,. 
When school opened again Mrs. Stover de- 
clared that the improvement she had made 
since the close of the last term surpassed 
anything she had ever experienced in all 
her school work. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


A NOTHER summer Flora spent quiet- 
ly at Uncle Jack’s. She ravenously 
devoured every book that came in 
her way; and she enjoyed them all. Uncle 
Jack intended sending her and Roy and 
Maude to High School when the next term 
should open. The little orphan was anxious 
to go and learn more ; but somehow, as the 
time for her to start approached, she loved 
the old hills more and more. The children 
who attended the High School were proud, 
haughty things, she thought, and they 
would treat her as the mountain children 
had when she was the moonshiner’s child. 
She knew that they would find out that she 
had no home ; and they would call her the 
hired girl and say all manner of mean things 
about her, and she would get homesick and 
cry to come back. She was a mountain 
girl, and the town girls would not care to 
make her their companion. 

Each morning she would take her book 
and trip up the Divide road through the 
dripping woods and mingle her songs with 
those of the birds. She thought she ought 
to stay. The birds, the old trees, and the 
hills, which were the first sights her baby 


AND OTHER STORIES 


51 


eyes had ever seen, all beckoned her to 
stay. She would very often go to the old 
graveyard and sit and listen to the cedars 
whispering their soothing lullabies over the 
graves of her loved ones. With sadness 
she would look back at the night her father 
and brother were arrested. With horror 
she could see the dark forms groping their 
way down the steep path to the still. Then 
the awful words : “Halt, hold ; you are our 
prisoners !” would grate on her ears. The 
awful run to Uncle Jack's, the terrible suf- 
fering that followed, the sad parting with 
Floyd when he was taken away to prison, 
and her father's death all rolled up in her 
memory like a nightmare. Her brother was 
a convict in a far away Southern city, and 
she knew that he was unhappy. Would it 
be just right for her to go to school and 
learn and be jolly with the other children 
who had never known trouble when her 
only brother was toiling under the burning 
sun or in the cruel walls of a cruel prison? 
Occasionally she had a letter from him, and 
he said it was a hard life. No one ever gave 
him a smile. No friendship was there — 
none. In the evening she would listen to 
the wood-thrushes singing down in the 
darkening coves and wonder if Floyd would 
not like to hear them too, for she had heard 
that there were no wood-thrushes in the 
far off South. 

Time had brought health to the little girl 


52 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

and a rosy hue to her cheeks. The eyes 
seemed to have lost some of their size, but 
none of their light and brilliance and plead- 
ing. She had grown much in stature and 
more in beauty. She was a blonde. Her 
eyes had stolen the color of the violet : and 
they, unlike the average rogue, could look 
straight into the eyes of others. 

Sometimes she would decide to go, and 
within an hour she would change her mind. 
But, at last she finally made up her mind. 
She would go, and more than that, she 
would study hard. She meant to waste no 
time. She would be so busy with her books 
that the proud town children should not 
see enough of her to make fun of her. She 
would study while they slept and study 
while they played, and she would not as- 
sociate with any of them. She would study 
so hard that she would soon overtake them 
and get ahead of them ; and by that time 
she would know how to act in society. That 
was the right idea. 

At last the time for them to go came. 
Their clothes were packed in a big trunk, 
and all kissed Aunt Nellie good-by. Gor- 
don Martin’s driver, who was then idle, was 
employed to take them to Richlands where 
the school was located, and bring the wagon 
and team back. Uncle Jack had obtained 
board for them in the home of Dr. Reece; 
and to the Doctor’s the driver was instruct- 
ed to take them. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


53 


It was a fresh September morning. Roy 
and Maude were in the highest of spirits. 
Flora, too, appeared to be joyful, but deep 
down in her soul was a vague, sad feeling 
which she meant to keep secret. She want- 
ed to go, and meant to go ; and yet she want- 
ed to stay. Her hills were silently beckon- 
ing her to stay ; and as she went farther and 
farther, she could hear them calling, call- 
ing. She was leaving her hills — the only 
home she had ever known, the only part of 
the world she had ever seen. She must 
stay a long time before she could see them 
again — before she could see Aunt Nellie 
and Uncle Jack again. She knew she would 
be homesick, but she resolved to bear it and 
persevere. 

The morning was damp but bright. The 
trees were dripping with dew. An ocean 
of mist lay over the limitless hills, with an 
occasional peak piercing the fog like an 
island of the sea. Soft, feathery clouds float- 
ed up the coves to the ridge and vanished 
in the yellow sunlight. Squirrels barked in- 
cessantly and bob-whites whistled merrily 
from every field. The forest was yet in full 
foliage, and for yards and yards the wagon 
rolled under a solid roof of luxuriant 
branches. 

At noon the wagon stopped and all fell 
to their lunch. Before them and below 
them spread basin-like the broad valley of 
the Clinch. The fields, with their broad 


54 A MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 

acres of ripening corn, were to the moun- 
tain children the greatest wonders of their 
lives. They had never dreamed that so 
many smooth farms lay so near to their 
hills. The wagon slowly descended the 
long mountain road and lumbered up the 
broad, white turnpike and over the wagon 
bridge into the little town. Everything was 
wonder to Flora. The tall wind mills, the 
brick sidewalks, the tall, black reservoir on 
the hill, the telegraph wires were all pure 
wonder; but she showed no surprise. She 
looked amazed when an engine passed, but 
she knew what it was and said nothing. 

Mrs. Reece received the children with a 
smile and at once showed them their rooms. 
The house itself was as much a wonder to 
the orphan as the wind mills, the sidewalks 
and the telegraph wires had been. The 
broad porch, with its massive columns, was 
in her imagination like some Grecian tem- 
ple. The white walls, the rich furniture, the 
padded chairs and the soft carpets reminded 
her of Le Bocage which she had read about 
in a novel. When she went to the supper 
table she thought the dining room as won- 
derful as anything she had seen. The Fong 
table, with its snow-white linen, and tfre 
napkin by each plate were strange things 
to her. She had never seen so much beauti- 
ful china in all her life. The electric lamps 
hanging from the ceiling, the flowered wall- 
paper, and the strange, daintily-prepared 


food were great curiosities. She could see 
nothing but wonders. She hardly dared to 
eat anything for the fear of making a mis- 
take. 

That night she slept none. Engines were 
constantly shifting about the station, and 
people walked back and forth on the brick 
sidewalk beneath her window. To these 
noises her ears were unaccustomed. She 
was already homesick. She wished she 
could go back. 

In the morning the little shy girl, with 
her two mountain friends, went down to the 
great schoolhouse. She had never seen 
such a large schoolhouse before. It was 
built of brick; and she wondered if it hadn’t 
taken a long time to build it. And the 
children! She had never seen so many to- 
gether before. When the bell called them 
in, she was still more surprised. The 
schoolhouse had more than one room. That 
was strange. And the furniture! She had 
never seen the like. The rows of patented 
desks, the globes, the charts, the maps and 
the pictures on the walls were all very won- 
derful. She had never known before that 
such things were to be found in school- 
rooms. 

But now it was the teacher’s time to be 
surprised. The precision and quickness 
with which the little girl answered her ex- 
amining questions were astonishing. And 
the first week of school brought results that 


56 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

were still more astonishing. How could 
that little mountain girl, who had never 
been five miles away from home in her life, 
be possessed with so much knowledge? 
Flora became the envy of her class-mates ; 
and many, who had never been known to 
study hard, put forth every effort to keep 
up with the moonshiner’s daughter. 


CHAPTER IX. 


W ILD mountain land had for years 
been attracting the greedy eyes of 
capital. Vast acres of the Divide 
were ownd by men who had never set foot 
on mountain soil. Over some of these tracts 
Gordon Martin watched with jealous care. 
The owner of one of these big surveys was 
a prominent attorney of Tazewell, who, 
through his agent, was continually buying 
more and more of the mountain holdings. 
Gordon thought this land king the greatest 
man on earth, and showed his admiration 
by giving to his youngest son his name. 
From that time hence the merchant exer^ 
cised almost unlimited power. He was 
made the acting agent for the attorney, and 
he began taking up options. He told the 
neighbors that their land was worthless, 
that there was no coal, and that while the 
boom was on was the time to sell. “If you 
let this opportunity slip,” he would say, 
“you will never have another; for it won’t 
take them long to find out there’s nothing 
here. Gentlemen, if you let this pass, you’ll 
never hear an engine whistle in these hills.’* 
The mountaineers listened to Gordon’s 
prophetic words. He ought to know. They 


58 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


gave him options on their lands, and they 
went. Many of those who had sold out 
went away ; but most of them came back 
and rented from Gordon their old homes in 
the hills. In no other place could they find 
such satisfaction. At night they would 
dream of the hills and all day they would 
think of them and away from them they 
could not stay. So they came back and 
found their former possessions worth three 
times as much as what they had sold them 
for. But Uncle Jack would listen to none 
of Gordon’s fairy tales. He told him sim- 
ply that he did not want to sell. All the 
land was taken up around Uncle Jack and 
the Winston heirs, but still he would not 
sell. 

A force of men now came dressed in 
khaki, with transit and tape. Gordon’s 
home was changed into a little hotel. He 
employed a clerk for his store; and every- 
where the hum of industry was heard. 
Morgan and Jake Lambert were employed 
by the surveyors as bush-cutters, and they 
carried three dollars’ worth of Gordon’s 
groceries to their cabin each night. Engi- 
neers were already running out the location 
for the road up Dry Fork. Active, prosper- 
ous times were coming to the hills. 

School was out. Flora had fallen but a 
few points below the grades required to 
finish the High School. Her progress was 
incomparable. In the whole history of the 


AND OTHER STORIES 


59 


school nothing had been found to equal it. 

The children were proud to come back 
home. They had longed to see Uncle Jack 
and Aunt Nellie and the big black horses. 
They had wanted to hear the bob-whites 
whistle again. They were afraid to whistle 
near the town, for hunters were always 
banging at them with their old guns. It 
was spring, and everything looked so fresh 
and green, that these healthy mountain 
children, like the uncaged bird, felt in their 
souls the sweet freedom of the hills. 

Flora was looking for Floyd back home, 
and now her future was brightening. 


CHAPTER X. 


A UTUMN again in the hills. Leaves 
already stained by the first slight 
frost, early harbinger of winter. The 
buckeye, like a skeleton, leafless and grim. 
Wild grapes hanging in rich clusters from 
every vine, and poke berries withering in 
the fence corners. Chestnut burs opening 
and letting loose their rich contents. Pump- 
kins glowing like living coals in every field 
of corn. 

Since early dawn a lone figure had been 
toiling on toward the hills. He had stopped 
at Richlands to see his sister and his 
friend, Roy Garland ; for they were at school 
again, and now, with a heart beating with 
gladness, he labored on. Four years had 
wrought few changes in the old hills. The 
same old log schoolhouse stood at the forks 
of the road ; and on the bleached logs he 
could still see the names carved there by 
him long ago. He looked to the eastward, 
and the same West Virginia hills spread 
out before him. Over them hung the same 
blue mist — the same mellow haze. He had 
been out of prison nearly a year, but had 
got a job and had worked in the same 
Southern state ever since that time. He 


AND OTHER STORIES 


61 


had regained his health lost in the walls of 
the prison, and was now a sun-tanned, 
healthy young man. He sat down on the rough 
stone before the old schoolhouse door and 
wiped the perspiration from his forehead. 
A flood of thoughts swelled up within him 
and made him happy. Everything was un- 
changed. The same old trees were there, 
the same mountains, the same air of peace 
and comfort that he had felt long, long ago. 
He rose and went to Uncle Jack’s and Aunt 
Nellie held him by the hand and looked 
long and steadily into his eyes. 

“And he’s already growed to be a man,” 
she said, “and the penitentiary ain’t dealt 
with him like it did his Daddy. Pore Mont, 
Floyd, he died a-prayin’. He jest talked 
about Christ all the time he was sick. I’m 
satisfied your Daddy is at rest.” 

The boy said' nothing, but turned and 
walked to the porch railing. A great lump 
came up in his throat and he shut his eyes 
to keep back the tears. He looked out over 
the darkening landscape and listened to a 
dog barking far away. One dim star was 
shining above the horizon. Lights from nu- 
merous mountain cabins shone through the 
dusk. He was lonely. His sister was at 
school, and his father was sleeping over on 
the Knob. The tears came up in spite of 
him and dropped down on his sleeve. 
Then he felt relieved and went back into the 
house. 


62 A MOONSHINE IT'S FOLLY 

After supper had been eaten a loud “hel- 
lo” called Uncle Jack to the door. Some- 
one was down at the gate and wanted the 
old man to come down. It was one of the 
khaki-clad surveyors who wanted to get 
board with the old man. He said that he 
had a great deal of calculation on hand, and 
that it could not be done at Gordon Mar- 
tin’s, because they were so crowded. He 
just wanted board and a quiet room with 
the old man where he could work in peace. 
He introduced himself as Bernard Forest, 
the chief engineer. When the young engi- 
neer shook hands with Floyd his counten- 
ance fell. Somewhere he had seen him be- 
fore. Floyd knew that he had seen him, 
too; but he could not tell where. The two 
young men exchanged numerous glances; 
and as often, the eyes of the foreigner fell 
before the piercing stare of the other. 

The engineer opened his grip and took out 
a cigar. He passed the box, and Floyd ac- 
cepted one. As Forest lighted his cigar, 
the tiny flame of the match illumined his 
face, and Floyd was sure he had seen him 
before. The mountaineer told the stranger 
his life’s history, and never left out a syl- 
lable of his career as a moonshiner. He 
told how he and his father had been arrest- 
ed, how he had been shot, and of the terrible 
suffering and the painful operation that fol- 
lowed. He painted before the eyes of the 
engineer his hard life in the Federal prison 


AND OTHER STORIES 


63 


and the lonely, sad days that followed the 
news of his father’s death. With glaring 
eyes he recounted the cowardly act of a 
drunken officer. The engineer’s cigar went 
out in his hand. When he relighted it, his 
face was very pale and his hand trembled. 

Suddenly changing the line of conversa- 
tion, he said: 

“Mr. Garland, what is the least you can 
board me for?” 

“Oh, we won’t fall out about the board,” 
said the old man. “It’ll be reasonable.” 

“But I’d rather know just exactly what 
I’m paying.” 

“Is twenty-five cents a day too much?” 
asked the old man. 

Of course twenty-five cents a day was not * 
too much. The engineer agreed to Uncle 
Jack’s terms and became an occupant of his 
home. 

Floyd occupied the bed with the engineer 
that night. The weary, foot-sore young 
mountaineer at once fell asleep, but his 
companion lay awake. His mind was over- 
burdened with thought. He was thinking 
of something he dared not express — of an- 
other night he had spent in the hills. 


CHAPTER XI. 


UTUMN passed away and Christ- 



mas came. Before Floyd had been 


^ sent away to prison he had always 
celebrated Christmas by getting on a big 
“spree. ” But this time he drank no whis- 
key. He saw others drink it, and felt 
ashamed. He would blush when he thought 
of the trouble and hardships brought on his 
mother by whiskey. Oh, yes, it had been the 
indirect cause of her death. He had quit. He 
meant never to taste it again. His old friends 
offered it to him, but he refused. He had 
quit — he had quit for good. 

The surveyors were still at work on the 
Divide. Bernard Forest had been a con- 
stant boarder at Uncle Jack’s since Floyd’s 
return. The two young men were together 
a great part of the time; but, somehow, no 
great friendship existed betwen them. 
Floyd was trying to recall the time when he 
had first seen him, for he was sure that 
sometime and somewhere he had seen him. 
But, try as he might, he could never think 
when or where it was. The engineer, when 
talking, would turn his face away from the 
mountaineer. He could not endure his pene- 
trating eyes. Floyd could feel, somehow, a 


AND OTHER STORIES 


65 


little hatred for him. He could not tell 
why, but he did not like him, and the dis- 
like was growing. The mountain boy could 
see that the engineer had no great love for 
him ; so a silent hatred sprang up between 
the two. Each knew that he was hated by 
the other, but neither knew the cause. 

Spring brought to the hills gentle breezes* 
sweet flowers, and music from countless 
feathered songsters. And it brought some- 
thing else. Another term of school had 
closed, and the Garland boy and girl and 
Flora Winston had come home again. All 
had finished the four years’ course in two. 
The proud town children laughed at the 
mountain children no more. Many wished 
they had been born mountaineers, and all 
envied the healthy, robust bodies of their 
schoolmates from the hills. 

Roy was now a heavy, well-built young 
man, and Maude had grown into a beauti- 
ful woman. She was neither blonde nor 
brunette. Her blue eyes and fair com- 
plexion were common to the former type 
and her dark hair to the latter. She was 
beautiful — almost as beautiful as Flora. 
There was a wide difference between the 
appearance of the two girls, but no fairer 
specimens of the mountain belle could have 
been found anywhere. 

Roy still remembered the night he went 
for Dr. Reece — that night long ago when 
Floyd was shot. He also remembered the 


66 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


promise he had made to himself, and he 
was keeping it. He was helping the moon- 
shiner’s daughter — or was trying to help 
her — and she was helping him . Her per- 
severance was helping him and would al- 
ways help him. It would enable him to 
fight the battles of life with more ambition 
— with more hopes of winning. She had 
risen, in his estimation, from the moon- 
shiner’s little starving, naked girl to an 
angel — to the most beautiful creature he 
had ever seen. As school was now out, he 
would tell her so some day. He did not 
know, but he believed that he was in love 
with her. He admired her courage and 
‘‘‘grit.” She was his ideal for a woman or 
:girl — she had the nerve. 

And now, that the time for planting had 
•come, the two young mountaineers rolled up 
their sleeves. One had spent his earlier days 
following a vicious trade, and now he meant 
to atone. The other had been in school, and 
he intended to harden his hands and muscles. 
He would show his friends that he was not 
above honest toil. From morning until 
night the two worked in their fields, and 
they looked on their growing corn with as 
much pride as the artist does on some glor- 
ious painting he is just finishing. 

The two girls would let Aunt Nellie work 
no more. While they were busy with her 
little tasks, the good old mother would tell 


AND OTHER STORIES 


67 


them they were the best girls in all the 
world, and calmly smoke her pipe. 

The engineer now had another enemy at 
Uncle Jack's. Roy did not like the way he 
put on airs, and he told him so. He did not 
like him, either, and he meant to tell him 
that sometime. But Flora was friendly to 
him— she could be no other way. She was 
friendly to everybody. The engineer cared 
not how many enemies he made if he could 
make her his friend. Her brother would 
scold her severely for having anything to 
say to him ; but she would always tell him 
that Forest was a nice man, and that he 
was intelligent. She could not see him as a 
scoundrel like her brother and Roy said he 
was, but persisted that he was a nice, intel- 
ligent young man. 

Roy would watch him smile at Flora, and 
listen to his soft, gentle words addressed to 
her, and tremble with rage. Secretly he 
longed to reach out his strong arm and take 
him by the throat. He was in love with the 
moonshiner's daughter, and he was jealous. 
He had had something he wanted to tell her 
for a long time, and now he was going to 
tell her. 


CHAPTER XII. 


O NE morning in the latter part of the 
summer the three schoolmates and 
the ex-convict lad strolled up to the 
Old Signal. That was the highest point in 
the county, for the Geologists had said so. 
They had recorded the altitude on a leaden 
plate and had embedded it in a sandstone 
on the summit of the knob. And, more 
than that, they had cleared the timber 
away, and had left nothing but the Old 
Signal tree, a venerable chestnut which 
stood on the side of the peak. Roy and 
Flora found a seat in the soft crab grass 
which covered the knob, and Floyd and 
Maude sought the shade of the old tree. A 
cool mountain breeze stirred, and the sun- 
shine was not oppressive. Flora talked of 
the beauties of the hils, and pointed out to 
the boy many a distant view. She called his 
attention to the songs of the birds, but he 
had heard them not. His ears were open 
to no other sound but the girl’s voice, and he 
could see nothing but her pleasant face. 
Sometimes a squirrel would dart up a near- 
by tree, or a martin would skim over their 
heads, causing the girl to utter little exclama- 
tions of surprise. The boy sat dreaming by 
her side. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


69 


“What are you quarreling about, Roy?” 
she finally asked in a mischievous tone. 

The boy jumped. 

“I was thinking,” he said. 

“Thinking of what?” asked Flora, the 
mischief in her voice increasing. 

“You — you — wouldn’t believe it if I 
should tell you,” stammered the lad, and a 
lump came up in his throat and interfered 
with his speech. 

“Oh, yes,” persisted the girl, “I’ll believe 
you. Ain’t I — haven’t I always believed 
you?” 

Again he stammered: “I was think — I was 
thinking — ” But the lump choked him so that 
he had to stop. 

He pulled a handful of the grass growing 
by his side and put a blade in his mouth. 
The girl looked astonished, but said noth- 
ing. He dug his heel into the hard clay and 
went on : 

“I — I was thinking — I was thinking — how 
happy — I could be — if you — loved me.” 

The lump had left this throat now, and 
he looked straight into her liquid blue eyes. 
The girl was silent for a moment and then 
said : 

“I do love you, Roy — I love you and Un- 
cle Jack and Aunt Nellie and Maud. I love 
all of you.” 

“You mean that you like us,” said the 
boy; and he felt the lump coming back to 
his throat. 


70 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

“I mean that I consider all your family 
my friends ; therefore, I love them.” 

“But I meant somethin’ else.” 

A cloud came over the sun, and Flora 
watched the shadows moving over the dis- 
tant hills. She said nothing and Roy went 
on : 

“I meant I would be happy if you loved 
me well enough to be my wife.” 

The lump was now all gone. He had 
said what he had wanted to say. 

The girl looked around vacantly for a mo- 
ment, then said : 

“You’re joking, aren’t you, Roy?” 

“I never was any more in earnest in my 
life,” returned the boy. The foolish, per- 
plexed smile had now left his face, and he 
spoke in a serious tone. 

“Roy, you surprise me,” said the girl. 
But she was no longer puzzled. He had at 
last spoken plainly, and she would speak 
plainly, too: “You seem like my brother, 
Roy; and I never dreamed of your saying 
things like this. Long ago, when I was a 
little ragged girl, I called you my sweet- 
heart. You were the only boy who would 
give me a kind word ; but you did it because 
you were sorry for me. It would have of- 
fended you, perhaps, if anyone had joked 
you about me. I was a drunkard’s child, 
but I couldn’t help that. I was the same per- 
son then that I am now. I am no better 
now than I was then ; and I fear that I am 


AND OTHER STORIES 


71 


not near so good. Your father took care of 
me, and all pitied me, the poor little orphan. 

I went to school and learned a little, and 
Daddy's land that he left for us is now val- 
uable. We are no richer, though, than we 
were then. We have not added one acre to it. 
It has simply increased in value. It was 
then considered worthless and I was a pau- 
per. But now our land would bring money 
— would bring lots of money. There has 
been a great change, and yet there has been 
no change ; for I am the very same girl, only 
a little bigger, and I own the same that I did 
when I was a pauper. 

“I know you are as good as anyone, and I 
always thought you were a little better. 
But you must give me time to think. Yotv 
have been too sudden. You have puzzled 
me.” 

Although she had spoken plainly, her 
words left Roy in doubt and much per- 
plexed. He wished she had told him just 
what she meant to do. He believed she 
could have told him whether she would 
ever be his wife, and he thought she should 
have done that. When she spoke again, he 
smiled a dissatisfied smile ; and the girl saw 
that he was not at ease, and asked him to 
go back home with her. Mischievously 
pretending to be unable to rise, she gave 
him her hand ; and he helped her to her feet. 
For a time he looked into her smiling eyes, 
then, throwing his brawny arms around her, 


72 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


he blushingly kissed her. The girl called 
Maude, and in a moment she and Floyd ap- 
peared on the summit of the knob. The two 
boys helped the two girls down the stony 
path ; and when they looked into each 
other's faces, each read a tale of disappoint- 
ment there. 

The shadows were lengthening when 
they returned home, and the fall crickets 
and katydids were singing their melancholy 
songs. The eyes of the boys did not puzzle 
Aunt Nellie. She secretly solved their rid- 
dle. She asked no questions, but she knew 
it all. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


T HE first days of September were at 
hand, and Bernard Forest was go- 
ing away. He was not going to 
stay, but was called to report to his em- 
ployer. The two mountain boys were glad 
to see him start. Their only regret about 
it was that he was coming back again. 
But both saw that Flora was not glad. 
After he had gone she took a novel and 
went to the shade of the old locust tree; 
but she did not read. The book lay un- 
opened in her lap. With dreaming eyes, 
she gazed out over the mist-veiled hills. 
She was sad and painfully perplexed. She 
could see a broad-shouldered youth always 
before her, who had seemed as near to her 
as Floyd ; but, somehow, her relation to 
him had now changed. He had on his face 
that crimson blush — that foolish smile. 
She could feel his strong arms closing 
round her, and the pressure of his lips up- 
on her own. Then she could see the little 
engineer, too. He was gone, and that was 
why she was sad. She could still hear his 
soft, tender words; and she remembered 
how easily they had fallen from his lips a 
few days before, when he took her in his 


74 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


arms and said: “I love you.” Oh, it was 
no trouble for him to say that. She won- 
dered why it had been such a task for Roy 
merely to hint at the expression of love. 
She remembered how he had stammered 
and blushed and how she had helped him 
out with what he wanted to say. She 
knew that those had been painful moments 
for him, and pitied him. She had known 
him all her life. She knew there was no 
better boy, and she believed she loved 
him. She believed she loved the engineer, 
too; so she was perplexed. 

All day she was silent except when she 
hummed a fragment of some old love song. 
Aunt Nellie knew why she was sad, but she 
asked her no questions. Roy, too, knew 
the cause of her sadness; and this knowl- 
edge made him sad. In the evening he 
sought solace in a squirrel hunt. 

With a full cartridge belt and a gun, the 
sad-hearted lad started up the Divide road. 
A storm was raging in his soul. He wished 
he had never seen that little orphan girl. He 
had fallen in love with her, and he was 
angry with himself for having allowed it. 
He had told her that he loved her, and she 
had as good as told him that she did not 
love him. His family had never been dis- 
graced by the whiskey traffic. He was re- 
spectable, and he didn’t see how he could 
have fallen in love with her. He could have 
kept it to himself, he thought ; and he didn’t 


AND OTHER STORIES 


75 


see why he had not done that. But he had 
been in love with her. He would not deny 
that. 

When he came to the schoolhouse, he 
turned down the path that led to Mont Win- 
ston’s cabin. As he passed the Old Signal, 
he could still see the impression in the grass 
where he and Flora had sat when he told her 
of his love. The place looked hateful, and 
he turned his head. 

On down the ridge he went, occasionally 
casting his eyes down on the lower hills. 
But, somehow, they had lost their beauty. 
They looked lonely and lifeless and forbid- 
ding. Was that little orphan girl the only 
charm those old hills contained? He 
thought so. 

He went on dreaming and thinking, and 
many a squirrel leaped across his path un- 
seen by him. Unconsciously he passed 
Morgan Lambert’s cabin and turned abrupt- 
ly down one of the intersecting spurs. 
Through a dense growth of laurel and 
huckleberry shrubs he went, and soon 
reached the end of the spur. He sat down 
on a mossy log and listened for squirrels. 
No sounds disturbed the stillness of the 
woods save the dropping of acorns from the 
trees. Down in the cove to his right he no- 
ticed a thin spiral of blue smoke rising 
lazily upward through the timber. Cau- 
tiously he crept around the hill and stopped 
behind a large tulip tree. He could now see 


76 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


the source of the smoke. It was a moon- 
shine still. For five minutes he stood there 
behind the tree without seeing any living 
thing about the place; then Morgan Lam- 
bert came through the low door and 
wiped the perspiration from his face with a 
red bandanna. Then Jake came out, sat 
down on a large boulder and began to fan 
himself with his “sundown.” The plant was 
in full force, and Morgan and Jake were the 
operators. His former opinions of Morgan 
were now confirmed : As he had always 
said, Lambert was a sneaking hypocrite. 

When the moonshiners had gone back 
into the house, Roy slipped from behind the 
tree and retraced his steps up the spur. 
Late in the evening he reached home, but 
said nothing about what he had learned. 
Flora w r as friendly to him, but he had no 
conversation for her. She saw that he was 
deeply wounded, and was very sorry of it. 
The girl was in a painful situation. She 
slept none that night. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


UTUMN had passed away again and 
Bernard Forest had come back to 



^ ^ the hills — back to Uncle Jack's. The 
Christmas festivals were over and Floyd 
Winston was making preparations to go 
away to school. It was to a business col- 
lege in the Hill City that he was going. 
With gladness the engineer watched him 
get ready to start. He told the boy that he 
was making the wisest step of his life. He 
wondered why Roy didn't go away and take 
a business course, too. But the mountain 
boy told him that he had work to do at 
home. The engineer said that he would love 
to see the mountaineer try to rise to a level 
with other mankind. 

When Floyd had gone Roy became lone- 
ly. He could see a very rare class of man- 
hood in the ex-convict lad. He felt alone 
while his friend was away. Floyd was dis- 
graced; — he knew that — but he knew that 
he could outlive the prison stain, and he ful- 
ly believed he would do it. He had already 
begun in an admirable way to outlive it. He 
had begun in the best way possible to make 
up for his wasted boyhood. Roy knew him 
as no other did, and he knew that he did not 


78 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

belong to the common class of mountain- 
eers. He had been, but was not now a 
moonshiner. He had been, but was not now 
a convict. Though bearing the brand of 
shame, he was a rising gentleman with an 
honest heart, a strong mind, and unflinch- 
ing courage and strong, strong hands that 
were not afraid of honest toil. 

Maude Garland, too, was lonely while the 
mountain boy was away. She, like her bro- 
ther, admired his pluck. She knew that he 
had had a bad chance in life, and had been 
reared in the shadow of a dark trade. But his 
mother, she remembered her. Surely the lad 
had received a lasting good from her advice, 
although her tears and prayers had been 
ignored by him. She was confident — she 
knew — that he would atone for his useless 
youth — his vicious boyhood. His disgrace 
had been due to his own father’s misguidance. 
His own father had been to blame for all the 
boy’s shame — for all of his misfortunes. 
Yes, Mont had brought it all about. He had 
gone to his grave with a bad name. Oh, 
yes, he had brought an early death to him- 
self and had left to the little girl a cruel 
shame for her inheritance. To Maude the 
boy was blameless. He had been led into 
that vicious trade before he w r as old enough 
to see the ruinous reward for him. He had 
told her once that he loved her, but she had 
not been prepared for that. She had refused 
his love. But since that time — the day they 


AND OTHER STORIES 


79 


went to the Old Signal — she had felt a 
strange something about her which she 
could not understand. She knew that the 
boy was making a great reformation. She 
often thought of his prison life with pity;, 
and it made her angry to hear neighbors 
speaking slanderously of him. A strange 
affection for him had in spite of her started, 
and she felt it growing. It had grown so 
much she felt miserable and alone during his 
absence. 

Floyd had been gone a month, and had not 
yet written her a line. He had written to 
Roy, but had not once mentioned her name. 
After she had read her brother’s letter, she 
stole out and cried. She could not tell why, 
but it hurt her feelings to know that he had 
inquired about all but her. He had asked 
about Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie, and had 
even said something about the engineer. He 
had asked about everything, it seemed, except 
herself. 

Immediately after supper she went to her 
room — the room occupied by her and Flora 
— and started a fire. She lighted a lamp and 
sat down by the window. A deep snow cov- 
ered the earth, and a full moon had risen. 
The night was cold, but her face was burn- 
ing. She raised the window and leaned over 
the sill. She could hear the sheep bleating 
down at the barn. Morgan Lambert's 
hounds were yedping over on the Knob. 
How different was that night from all oth- 


80 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


ers that had passed. The wind was tangl- 
ing her hair, and she drew her head back 
inside. She moved her chair close up to the 
fire and held her hands over the blaze. To- 
night Floyd was away — far away — and she 
wondered if he ever thought of her. She 
wished he were there by her side telling her 
the same story he had told her at the roots 
of the Old Signal tree. She now under- 
stood the strange feeling for the mountain 
boy. It could be nothing else but love. 

When Flora came up Maude told her all, 
for she never refused to divulge any secret 
to the moonshiner’s girl. But she could 
not sleep that night. That strange thing, 
which had for a long time puzzled her, had 
put her terribly out of order. She firmly 
declared to her friend that love was the 
most tormenting of all diseases. 

Roy answered Floyd’s letter and the 
Winston boy wrote again. This time he 
sent his kindest regards to Maude. The 
girl was delighted. He might yet forgive 
her and tell her again that he loved her. 
She knew that she loved him now; and if 
he were only at home, she thought, he 
would tell her that old story again. It 
would be a year before he could get his di- 
ploma, and probably he would not come un- 
til it should be granted. She longed to see 
him again, and that was a long time to wait. 
She suffered a great deal of anxiety; for 
there were lots of girls in the city and they 


AND OTHER STORIES 


81 


had never heard of his early career and his 
prison life. Perhaps he would fall in love 
with some of them. She remembered how 
handsome, how strong and healthy he looked 
when he left; and she feared that some city 
girl would fall in love with him. More 
than once she was tempted to write him and 
boldly ask him to forgive her, and once she 
startd to write a letter; but the belief that 
he would write her caused her to burn the 
sheet unfinished. 

At last the letter came. In it he did not 
mention love, but it was so full of sadness 
that the girl cried again. The very lines 
looked lonely. That was because she knew 
their author to be lonely. She crimped the 
envelope to put the letter back, and a tiny 
piece of paper fell to the floor. She picked 
it up. On one side was a very small picture 
of the mountain boy. It was Floyd’s photo. 
It looked very life-like, but worn and sad. 
Again and again she pressed the fragile bit 
to her lips, and then looked at the sad face 
again. On it she thought she could see the 
old prison pallor; but, to her, that was no 
longer a brand of shame. 

That evening she wrote Floyd a letter. 
In it she begged him to accept her love 
which she had once refused him. Then af- 
ter she had mailed the letter she was 
ashamed. She was afraid that she had 
done wrong. He might think her too hasty. 
It might cause him to change his mind. 


82 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

She thought herself to be the most foolish 
girl living, and cried every day until she re- 
ceived an answer. When the mail carrier 
delivered the letter into her hand, she was 
almost afraid to break the envelope. But, 
at last, she tore off the end and looked in- 
side. She would read it at all hazards. The 
salutation was enough “My own Maude,” it 
read. He had forgiven her — had fully for- 
given her. He expressed the complete hap- 
piness which her letter had brought him, 
and said that satisfaction undreamed of was 
now his. The love, which had been giving 
the girl so much misery during his absence 
began at once to brighten her life. She was 
happy — truly happy. The love she had for 
the mountain boy was unsought. She had 
tried to smother it down but that had been 
useless. She was now sure that it was per- 
manent. 

Winter passed away. The gentle spring 
breezes tapped lightly on Nature’s myriad 
doors, and her children responded and came 
forth. The sun-god, by his cheering magic 
brought them out. In gay attire and with 
musical voices, they populated the silent 
hills. Notwithstanding the beauty and love- 
liness of the season, it passed away too 
slowly for Maude. She longed to see win- 
ter again. The next season of snow would 
bring Floyd to her again. 


CHAPTER XV. 


U NTIL he received Maude’s letter, 
Floyd had been very unhappy. But 
he had determined to stay until he 
completed his course. He had wanted to 
ask something 1 about the girl in his first let- 
ter; but, somehow, he could not. He did 
not know why, but it was simply impossible. 
The school was as unhappy for him as the 
prison had been. When he was in prison he 
had not left his heart in the hills — he was 
not in love. His sister was at Uncle Jack's 
but he knew she was being treated nicely. 
He had suffered no anxiety on her account. 
But the first few weeks of his school life 
had been almost unbearable. He loved the 
Garland girl, but did not know that she 
loved him. He did not know that the girl’s 
painful love was equal to his own. But 
when he read the letter everything changed. 
He could stay now. Though longing to 
come back, he knew it would be less painful 
for him to stay. He was now confident that 
Maude loved him. That was enough. He 
could stay anywhere now. With that 
thought, he laughed at hard lessons. There 
were none too hard for him now. 

Floyd rapidly advanced in all his studies. 


84 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

He was becoming a good stenographer. His 
penmanship was far superior to that of any 
of the other students. Before he had been 
there a year, his diploma was granted. The 
president of the college offered to get him a 
position, but he refused. He told him that 
a boom was on at home, and that he was 
needed there. So he came back — back to 
the hills, and to Maude. 

Aunt Nellie watched them meet — her girl 
and the moonshiner’s boy — and judged 
rightly of Maude’s strange demeanor while 
he had been gone. 

The engineer was still in the hills — still 
at Uncle Jack’s, and the hatred between him 
and Roy was increasing. Each was jealous 
of the other. Their jealousy was deep — very 
deep — but silent. The mountaineer longed 
more than ever to take the engineer by the 
throat, and the engineer took more pains 
than ever to show the mountaineer the mis- 
take he was making by staying in the hills. 
Flora was friendly to both, and was still 
puzzled. She still thought she loved them 
both. When Roy would go away from home 
for a few days, she could not be content. 
The broad shoulders and the handsome, 
manly face were always before her. She 
was almost sure that she loved him. 

And when the engineer was away, she 
could see him, too. There was a wide con- 
trast between the two. How different was 
the little engineer with his thin, spare body 


AND OTHER STORIES 


85 


and delicate legs, clad in khaki and canvas. 
She could always see the two side by side. 
Surely the big, handsome mountain boy 
was superior in every way to the little proud 
engineer. Then she would, in fancy, hear 
them talk of love. Roy would look foolish 
and stammer and turn his face away, and 
say nothing after all ; while the engineer 
could look boldly in her eyes and tell her 
the whole story, and never pause an in- 
stant for words. Surely, she thought, he 
must love her more than Roy did. 

Roy had again spoken to her of love, 
with a greater effort and in a more awkward 
way than before. But this time he was bet- 
ter satisfied with the result. She told him 
that she believed she loved him. That was 
better. He might yet succeed. 

Floyd was offered several good positions, 
but he refused them all. He and Roy rolled 
up their sleeves and went to work. Each 
day they toiled in the fields, and each night 
they came in tired and weary. The engineer 
lost all faith in the boys. He said that the 
mountaineer could never and would never 
make anything of himself. A sad condition 
was theirs, he said. Bitter toil and ignor- 
ance was their inheritance from, their savage 
forefathers. But the boys still kept silent 
and their hatred for him grew. 

About the middle of the summer Flora 
came to the conclusion as to whom she 
loved. She decided that she loved the en- 


86 


A MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 


gineer. But still her feelings for Roy were 
not the same as they used to be. But she 
did not think now that she ever loved him. 
The idea, she thought, had been a whim, 
a foolish fancy. She had not told him she 
did not love him. She would keep that 
secret, and he would find it out for himself. 
She knew that he loved her, and she dreaded 
to see him crushed so suddenly. Little by 
little he would find it out, and that would 
not be so bad. 

But Roy soon became convinced. One 
morning when the engineer had started to 
his work, the mountain boy saw him kiss 
her at the gate. The sight of that kiss 
froze his blood. He thought he was going 
to fall and clutched at his heart. Never 
before had he had such a strong desire to 
kill. He felt that he could kill everybody. 
As he went to his work, he met Flora com- 
ing up from the gate. As they met, both 
turned their heads away. The boy went 
to the field angry, jealous and ashamed, and 
the girl took her book to the old locust tree 
and sat all the forenoon looking down on 
her hills which seemed suddenly to have lost 
their charm. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


T IMES were still lively in the hills. 
The railroad on Dry Fork was near- 
ing completion, and branch lines 
were being built up the numerous creeks- 
Prospectors’ camps went up ; lumbermen’s 
camps went up, and tramroads were built 
in a great hurry. The khaki-clad force 
was increased. The surveying crew was 
reinforced, and the timber branders came. 
Many “darkies” and Italians were at work 
on the new railroad; and often they came 
to the Divide to buy produce. But noth- 
ing could induce any “darky” to cross 
into the old County that will claim no 
African as a citizen. The Italians crossed 
over. They would have ventured into the 
jaws of death for a lamb, a chicken or a 
goose. So the mountain farmers found a 
ready sale for their produce, and a right 
good price they got for it. 

Morgan and Jake Lambert had quit cut- 
ting bushes for the surveyors. Of late they 
were seldom seen about home, and their 
visits to Gordon Martin’s store became less 
frequent. Old Josiah could not understand 
why Morgan had quit coming to prayer 
meeting and to Sunday School. He was 


88 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

afraid that he had already fallen from Grace. 
But Roy Garland understood his absence. 

The two stout mountain lads still worked 
in their fields. Though melancholy and sad, 
Roy toiled each day by the side of his light- 
hearted friend. Life had lost all its bright- 
ness for him, it seemed; but with the hope 
that the darkness would eventually vanish, 
he did not despair. So the two labored on — 
one happy with the thought that he had 
redeemed himself from a wicked, vicious 
life, and the other sad and silent with the 
thought of having been rejected by a moon- 
shiner's daughter. 

In the evening after the day’s work was 
over, Floyd and Maude would walk in the 
fields or around the Divide ; and Roy would 
sometimes accompany them. He could not 
bear the presence of the engineer. He 
hated to see him making love to Flora. 
Slowly he would walk behind Floyd and his 
sister and contemplate the great workings 
of Nature. 

One evening in August the three took 
their accustomed walk; and, as usual, Roy 
walked behind. So slowly did he walk that 
the two lovers left him alone. The lonely 
sad youth was glad to be left to himself. 
The sun was sending his parting rays 
through a gorge in a mountain of red clouds. 
The usual purple haze hung over the far- 
reaching West Virginia hills. A gentle 
breeze stirred, and the leaves whispered 


AND OTHER STORIES 


89 


softly and soothingly over the boy’s head. 
He thought of many things. He went 
back to the former days — back to the days 
when neighbors said that civilization had 
not come to the hills. He went back to 
the days when he was but a child; and as 
a child, he roamed, in fancy, over the old, 
old hills before they had received a foreigner 
into their peaceful detphs. Sweet , in- 
deed, were those old days. The old days 
that were gone had their vices — he knew 
that — but they were very few. Moonshine 
whiskey was their worst evil. It had caused 
nearly all the feuds and crime of that time. 
But were conditions any better now? Was 
there any less whiskey now than there had 
been then? Was the still any worse than 
the saloon? Why would the Government 
send men into the mountains to cut up the 
stills and shoot down the moonshiners or 
carry them away, and then allow on the old 
still site a saloon? Was this railroad build- 
ing, this pouring in of foreigners, this riff- 
raff from the Old World — was all this 
civilization? Could it be that true civili- 
zation was beset by so many evils? Surely 
this was not civilization. It must be only 
progress. Capital had not set its greedy 
eyes on the mountains for the purpose of 
civilizing their natives. It wanted only to 
fatten on their wealth which they could 
not enjoy. That greedy vampire was suck- 
ing the life blood from the hills. It was 


90 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


mangling their forests and boring into their 
very hearts. Ah, scarred and cheerless would 
be the old hills in a few decades. 

The sun had gone down and only a faint 
glow marked the course of his departure. 
The boy looked to the eastward, and one 
pale star was shining in infinite space. In 
rapid succession several rumbling reports 
sounded down on Dry Fork. The graders 
were blasting on the grade for the new 
road. They were working night and day. 
Then the piercing cry of a freight engine on 
the Clinch Valley line came to him on the 
still evening air. He looked down on the 
hills again and thought once more of the 
old days that were gone — the days when 
those peaceful hills were undisturbed by the 
iron monster with breath of fire. He thought 
of the old mountain hunter who breathed 
his native air undefiled. He thought of the 
once-pure womanhood of the hills, when it 
was unmolested by “slick-tongued foreign- 
ers. Again the wailing neigh of the iron 
horse and the clattering din of rapidly re- 
volving wheels sounded distinctly. Then 
he wondered how mighty must have been 
the hands that fashioned these hills — how 
much mightier than the puny ones that 
built the locomotive whose sounds had just 
died away. 

He rose to follow the absent couple, but 
saw them coming and waited for them. 
“God has almost forsaken these mountains,” 


AND OTHER STORIES 


91 


he said, aloud. ‘‘But I think He will come 
back here to dwell sometime. This thing 
they call civilization is bringing in countless 
evils — more evil than good. It is not civili- 
zation. Capital and foreign criminals are 
not going to civilize this country. It is up 
to the more intelligent people to do that for 
his unfortunate neighbor. We must work 
the change ourselves.” 

The boy and the girl came up; and to- 
gether the three went toward home, listen- 
ing to Nature's myriad voices. The moon 
had risen large and white; and under its 
kindly light the two gay lovers tripped 
lightly over the stones, hand in hand. At 
their heels the girl's stout, manly brother 
trudged, thinking, still thinking. He was 
thinking of the old days that were gone, and 
of something else. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


T HE lord of the Lambert cabin sat 
patting a lean hound, while his wife, 
a thin, slatternly woman, prepared 
their meagre supper. Jake was seated near- 
by, oiling his pistol. He did not know that 
Floyd Winston and Maude Garland had 
been walking that evening, but he had heard 
that they were in love with each other. Jake 
and Maude had grown up together ; and ever 
since they had been schoolmates, the tall, 
awkward lad had cherished an ignorant hope 
that he and Maude would one day marry. 
Never had the girl given him so much as a 
word that could have justified such a hope ; 
but Morgan had always told him that he 
could get her for a wife, if he would only 
try, and he believed that “Pap” knew every- 
thing. 

The lean, pale woman called them to 
their supper of bacon and beans and “roast- 
ing ears.” After taking a drink from the 
big red bottle that stood under the bed, they 
obeyed. As they ravenously devoured the 
bacon and beans, the moonshiner, moved 
to eloquence by the drink from the red bot- 
tle, proceeded to instruct his son in all the 
arts and tricks in courtship. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


93 


“I wuz onct a boy,” he said, “an’ now I 
am a good deal older ’an you air, my son. 
Now, 1 want to tell ye, ef ye air ever a-goin’ 
to try to git that air gal, ye’ve got to put in, 
er that sneakin jail bird is a-goin’ to beat ye 
outen ’er. I’d be ashamed o’ myse’f, ef I 
wuz you, to let sich as that go on.” 

Morgan helped himself to another plate 
of beans, and then continued : “Uv course, 
the ole man Jack aint murch account, but 
that ar gal o’ hisen shore is a dandy — she is 
shore. An’ now, son, ef ye’ll take the advice 
yer pap gives ye ye’ll go right to that gal 
to-mor’ an’ lay the whole case afore her. 
To-mor’ is Sunday an’ the whole fambly 
will be purty apt to be at home; so that 
will be the best time at’ ye kin git.” 

He cut himself an enormous piece of 
bacon, and went on: “You air a good deal 
purtier ’an that ar sneakin Floyd Win’son; 
an’ then, asides, you aint never went to 
jail, an’ th’ aint nobody knows we air a- 
stillin now. So, ef thet gal has got any 
sense, hit’ll all be a easy matter. Uv course, 
ef she don’t accept ye, she’s a dadblamed 
fool, an’ ye wouldn’t want ’er nohow.” 

Supper being over, the father and son 
each took a large chew of their “long-green” 
and got themselves down to an earnest talk. 
Morgan still caressed the same hound, and 
spat his tobacco juice against the soot-be- 
grimed wall. 

“Thar aint but one thing ’at will be in yer 


94 


A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


way,” he said, rolling his quid over in his 
mouth, “an" that is that ar brother o’ hern. 
He's a dadburned fool anyhow; an' ef he 
ever gits to foolin' with ye. hit'd be my advice 
to go at 'im about right. The young feller 
knows better ’an to monkey murch with yer 
pap; but some way or other, he don't like 
you. Ef I wuz you, I wouldn't take murch 
offen him.” 

“I'll fix 'em, pap,” Jake said, and then 
grew silent. 

Again the big red bottle was brought out, 
and in a little while the contents had been 
emptied into the stomachs of the big moun- 
taineers. Both grew very talkative, and it 
was understood that Jake should start early 
next morning to see the girl, whom he was 
so sure he would make his wife. 

About sunrise he started with a big re- 
volver in one hip pocket and a bottle of 
whiskey in the other. As he went up the 
ridge, he took four or five big drinks from 
his bottle and fired a round into a tree. Mor- 
gan had told him that unless he got full, he 
could not talk to the girl as he should. So 
he resolved that he would follow “pap's” 
advice to the letter. 

But he needed not to go to Uncle Jack's 
in order to see Maude. At the old school- 
house he met her with Roy and Floyd Win- 
ston. The boys had started off without a 
gun, and each feared that they had made a 
mistake. It was not the first time that the 


AND OTHER STORIES 


95 


girl had seen a drunken man, but she was 
frightened. On toward them swaggered the 
young moonshiner, cursing Floyd and 
reaching for his revolver. But as the Win- 
ston boy did not reach for his own, Lam- 
bert did not take it from his pocket. When 
they came face to face, Jake caught Maude 
by the sleeve and rudely pulled her away 
from Floyd. The girl uttered a little 
scream. Roy throttled him and Floyd took 
his gun. He turned fiercely and, pulling 
his bottle from his pocket, threw it at Floyd, 
missing his head narrowly. Terribly en- 
raged at this, Floyd flew at the drunken 
brute and knocked him down as easily as 
if he had been a corn stalk. After giving 
him a severe pounding, he lifted him to his 
feet, and giving him a parting kick, sternly 
bade him go home. Jake obeyed. Thor- 
oughly sobered, he made his way back with- 
out either whiskey or gun. The two boys 
and the girl went on to the post-office, 
whither they had started, and Jake went 
straight home and told Morgan all that had 
happened and some more. 

“That devilish Roy Gyarlan’ an’ that in- 
fernal Floyd Wins’on robbed me/’ he said. 
“Roy took my gun an’ poked it down in his 
pocket, an’ Floyd drunk the last drop o’ my 
licker afore he took it away from his head. 
Then they both jumped on me and beat me 
pert nigh to death ; an’ that gal pulled great 
wads o’ my hair out. Then, when they got 


96 


A MOONSHINERS FOLLY 


through wi’ me, they all went on to the 
post-office.” 

Vowing the most dreadful vengeance on 
the two boys, Morgan picked up his Win- 
chester and started to hunt them. At the 
old schoolhouse he met them coming back 
from the office. He walked up very close 
to them and boldly told them that their time 
was up. Again the girl screamed. The boys 
said nothing, but both saw they were in 
danger. 

“You snakin’ jail bird,” he said, looking 
straight at Floyd, “don’t ye know better 
’an to treat a boy o’ mine that a-way?” He 
cocked his gun, threw it to his shoulder, and 
with the muzzle close to the boy’s breast, 
pulled the trigger. But, instead of a report, 
there was nothing but the click of the ham- 
mer as it drove the firing pin into the 
empty chamber. Morgan was drunk when 
Jake came home, and in his hurry and drunk- 
en anger, he had forgotten to throw a shell 
into place. The moonshiner looked at the 
gun for a moment and started to throw a 
cartridge into the chamber, but before this 
could be accomplished, Roy whipped Jake’s 
revolver from his own pocket and held it 
steadily against the moonshiner’s heart. 
Floyd took Morgan’s gun and ejected the 
cartridges, then put it back into his hands. 

“Take this,” he said, “and you go straight 
home and stay there. If either of you act 


AND OTHER STORIES 


9 ? 


as you have this morning, well kill you — 
that’s all. Now go.” 

Morgan looked at the big revolver and 
the steady hand that held it, and started to 
say something; but Roy interrupted him: 

“Don’t you make one threat; if you do, I’ll 
kill you now.” 

Mogan laid his empty gun across his 
shoulder, gave his red mustache a twist or 
two and started. When he reached home, 
Jake had refilled the red bottle; and the two 
set to work to re-empty it. 

“Jake,” said the elder Lambert, “we’ll git 
them two young devils yit ; and to bring it 
all out right, we’ll do some robbin’ our- 
selves.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


T HE mail came and went each day be- 
carried on horseback by Lawrence Ba- 
tween Lookout and Burkville, and was 
ker, a dwarfed lad of sixteen, whose father 
was a convict in the state penitentiary. Two 
-offices were located on the route between 
these two places — one at Gordon Martin’s 
store, and one at another store six miles 
farther down the Divide. The distance 
from Lookout, the western terminus of the 
route, to Burkville was fifteen miles. The 
carrier always started from Lookout at 
eight o’clock A. M., and returned at five P. 
M. If a neighbor wanted to mail a letter, he 
would usually wait somewhere on the route 
and deliver him the envelope and the nec- 
essary money to buy the stamp, which 
would be placed on at the next office. 

Bernard Forest, the engineer, had for a 
long time bought whiskey of Morgan Lam- 
bert on the credit system. At last the moon- 
shiner, though much afraid that he would 
offend his customer, asked him for his money. 
Forest told him, though falsely, that on the 
following Thursday he would get his last 
three months’ salary by registered mail; and 
that, on the arrival of same, his account 
should be paid in full. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


99 


Wednesday morning found the engineer 
very sick. So sick was he, that he did not 
go out to work. He said he would not work 
any more until the next Monday. In the 
evening he walked out to Gordon Martin’s 
to hire a horse the rest of the week. A lit- 
tle horseback riding would do him good, he 
said. He got the horse. The merchant 
hired him one at a dollar a day. Before he 
started back to Uncle Jack’s, he mailed an 
envelope, on which he had forgotten to 
write the name of the state. 

That night Morgan and Jake Lambert 
oiled their guns and cut some holes in a 
couple of bandanna handkerchiefs. 

“Yes, Jake,” said Morgan when the task 
was finished, “we’ll do some robbin’ our- 
s’ves.” 

The next morning the two passed Gor- 
don Martin’s store. At a lonely spot far 
from any house they watched the mail 
carrier pass, going toward Burkville. 

* * * * * * 

Flora had taken her book and gone on 
her usual morning’s stroll. The engineer 
had started off for a ride ; but the two boys 
and Maude remained with Aunt Nellie and 
Uncle Jack. 

Instead of walking through the fields, as 
usual, Flora took the Divide road and over- 
took the engineer, who was waiting for her 
to come along. Without a word, he rode up 
to a log, from which the girl mounted be- 


100 A MOON SHINER'S FOLLY 


hind him. In a moment the eloping couple 
were galloping toward Iaeger — toward the 
train. 

About eleven o’clock the boys got their 
guns and started on another squirrel hunt- 
ing jaunt. They stopped at Martin’s store 
and got the mail, and then went leisurely on 
around the ridge. They saw the mail car- 
rier coming two hundred yards ahead, but 
he did not see them. On he came, whistling 
a gay mountain air. But the tune stopped 
in his mouth when two men with red ban- 
dannas tied over their faces stepped into the 
road before him, with Winchesters pointed 
at his heart. The boys ran at their utmost 
speed, hoping to catch the robbers before 
any injury could be done the carrier, but 
they were too late. The dwarfed lad, un- 
acquainted with danger, reached for his 
gun; but before his hand could touch his 
pocket, two bullets pierced him and he fell 
into the road dead. Roy and Floyd both dis- 
charged their guns at the ruffians ; but they 
were yet too far off to do them any bodily 
injury with their shot-guns. One of the 
bandits snatched the pockets from the sad- 
dle, and both darted off through the brush. 

Roy stood by the body, and Floyd 
mounted the carrier’s horse and rode rapid- 
ly toward the post-office. Gordon soon ar- 
rived on the scene of the tragedy. Others 
soon gathered ; and the boys and Gordon 
started in hot pursuit of the criminals. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


101 


Their tracks were plainly visible in the soft 
earth; and these the pursuers followed to 
the end of the spur, where they found the 
pockets cut open and many envelopes and 
papers scattered about. All the letters had 
been opened; and so hurriedly had it been 
done, that many were simply torn in two. 
In examining them, Floyd found one on 
which he recognized the handwriting of the 
engineer. It was the letter he had mailed 
the previous evening, and it had been re- 
turned to Deerlick post-office for correction 
of address. The writer had failed to write 
the name of the state on the envelope. Floyd 
opened it and read the following: 

“Deerlick, Virginia, August 28, 19 — . 
Hon. P. J. Hill, 

Memphis, Tenn., 

Dear Sir: 

I shall leave the mountains to-morrow. 
If you have procured my divorce, please 
write me at Cattletsburg, Ky., as my af- 
fianced will accompany me there. We shall 
stay in the above named place until I hear 
from you. 

Thanking you for your expected reply, 
I am, 

Very truly yours, 

Ralph W. Fields. 

Floyd handed the letter to Roy, and while 
it was being read a puzzle of long standing 
was solved. He knew now when and where 


102 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

he had seen the engineer. It was when he was 
arrested. It was he who had shot him. He 
thought he was certainly the biggest fool in 
the world. Why had he never recognized 
him before now? But he knew him now. 
That was enough. 

The letter said that he would leave the 
hills to-morrow, and it was written the day 
before. To-morrow was now to-day. And 
he had as good as said he would get married 
soon. That was now plain, too. He had 
ridden off that morning, and Flora had gone 
on a pretended walk. She had run away 
with him — that was all. 

Roy had never seen the engineer until he 
came to his home to board, but when he 
read the letter he understood it, too. The 
eloping couple had started early in the 
morning, and it was now past noon. They 
had reached the station before now. But 
then they remembered that the west bound 
train did not leave Iaeger until five in the 
evening. They might yet have time to 
catch up with them. Anyway, they would 
try. Paying no more attention to the re- 
cent tragedy, they sped like arrows up the 
spur, jumped on the carrier's horse, and 
dashed around the ridge. Reaching home, 
they hurriedly saddled the big blacks, and 
mounting these, they galloped off toward 
the railroad station. Twenty miles of 
rough mountain path lay before them, and 
they knew they must lose no time if they 


AND OTHER STORIES 


103 


made it. Both lost their hats, and both re- 
ceived rough treatment from the branches 
that grew across their path. Terribly 
bruised, they reached the river road, where 
they let their horses breathe a few m i nu- 
ll tes. Their way was not so hard now. 
They could now make two miles easier than 
they had made one coming down the moun- 
tain. They were almost sure they could 
reach the station by five. 

On and on they galloped in single file, 
never slacking for a moment; and they 
came in sight of the station at exactly five 
o’clock. The train was just pulling out as 
they rode up. Before they could dismount, 
it had gone so far that the tired and bruised 
lads could not overtake it. With rage and 
despair, they watched the receding iron 
monster turn a curve and go out of sight. 

Then they thought of the water tank. It 
was a half a mile down the track, and the 
train would necessarily stop there. In an 
instant they were on their perspiring horses 
and galloping after it. The bell was ring- 
ing when they dashed up to the tank, but 
they were on time. Dismounting and 
throwing their bridles over the pommels 
of their saddles, they dashed up the steps as 
the engine was pulling out again. 

Some of the ladies screamed with fright 
as the two wild-eyed, hatless youths came 
into the car. The engineer and Flora were 
seated in the rear of the car, and the girl 


104 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


was weeping. With no weapons in sight, 
the mountaineers started up the aisle. The 
engineer looked up and saw his enemies. 
He blanched with fear and drew his pistol. 
He guessed that Floyd now recognized him, 
and he was afraid that the results of that 
recognition would be terrible. Jumping to 
his feet, he leveled his pistol at Floyd and 
did what he had done once before, in the 
old days that were gone. His bullet passed 
through the fleshy part of the mountain- 
eer's left arm. 

He attempted to fire another shot, but 
slipped the lock of his automatic pistol. Be* 
fore he could find the trouble, the strong 
mountain boy laid his heavy hand on his 
shoulder. 

“Give me that thing," said Floyd, reach- 
ing his almost paralyzed hand for the gun. 
The engineer obeyed, and Floyd tossed the 
little weapon of polished blue steel out of 
the window. Speechless and almost faint* 
ing, the little engineer sat down again. 

“Who wrote this?" sternly asked the ex- 
convict, holding the letter signed by Ralph 
W. Fields before his eyes. The engineer 
was so much surprised that he could not an- 
swer. Then it was passed to Flora, who 
was blushing with shame by his side. Her 
attitude was suddenly changed. The man 
with whom she was running away was none 
other than the drunken officer who had shot 
Floyd ; and now he had tried again to kill 


AND OTHER STORIES 


105 


him. She did not know that her brother 
had been wounded by the bullet. Poor, 
miserable girl. She had strayed from the 
beautiful path in which she had always 
walked. How she longed to throw herself 
at Roy’s feet right there in the car. 

Floyd turned to her and said : “It is now 
up to you. Will you go on with this man, 
who has ever been our enemy; or will you 
go back to the home that has sheltered you 
ever since this ccoundrel came to do his 
part in ruining our people?” 

Without speaking, she went to her broth- 
er’s side ; and led by Roy, the two walked 
toward the door. The engineer looked at 
the girl for the last time. He had been 
thwarted in his plans by two mountain 
boys. It was too much. Of course, the 
train had stopped when the shooting oc- 
curred ; and it had not yet started again. 
The window was open by his side. He 
must get even with that mountaineer. He 
still had another pistol in his pocket — a 
small revolver. Cautiously he pulled the 
tiny nickel-plated weapon from his pocket 
and fired a bullet into the facing of the door 
by the side of his intended victim. Floyd 
pushed his sister to the platform and turned 
in the door. Another bullet cut a lock from 
his temple. His enemy sat down and 
rested the weapon on the back of the seat. 
The mountaineer saw that it was time for 
him. to act. The old passionate fire that 


106 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

burned in the breasts of his pioneer fore- 
fathers flamed up afresh. Deliberately he 
drew his big forty-five from its holster; and 
with a deafening report, sent a big bullet 
through the engineer's body. Fields fell 
forward and died. 

Floyd went immediately and gave up. 
After a careful trial before the Mayor of the 
little town, he was acquitted. It was proven 
that he was justifiable in the deed, and there 
was no need to bother the county court. 

On Saturday the two boys and the runa- 
way girl came back home. Instead of scold- 
ing her, Aunt Nellie threw her withered old 
arms around her, and the two — the old 
woman and the girl — wept together. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


W PIEN Roy Garland and Floyd Win- 
ston came back home they found 
themselves resting under suspicion 
of a terrible crime. The boys had taken 
their guns and gone out about eleven 
o’clock in the morning. They had been the 
first to reach the mail carrier after he had 
been shot. They had witnessed the shoot- 
ing at a distance, and had seen one of the 
robbers snatch the pockets and dart through 
the bushes, with the other at his heels. The 
carrier had been shot twice and it was said 
that the bullets were not the same size. 
Roy and Floyd each had a pistol that day, 
and they were of different calibres. Old 
Josiah bodly declared that the robbers had 
been none other than the Garland boy and 
the ex-convict Floyd. Gordon Martin was 
present when they found the pockets, but 
he had not noticed the letter, which had 
been signed by Ralph W. Fields and re- 
turned to Deerlick for correction of address. 
All he knew about it was that the boys left 
suddenly and without warning. Some of 
the neighbors had seen them mount the 
dead carrier’s horse and dash away. Gor- 
don had seen the tracks of two men, and 


108 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

had followed them down the spur where he 
found the pockets cut open and rifled. The 
boys could have taken them down there and 
robbed them, he thought. These boys were 
sharp, he said. The tracks could be fol- 
lowed no farther than the end of the spur. 
Perhaps they had walked back to the road 
in the impressions made by their feet as 
they went down. He wouldn't say that the 
boys did it, but it looked suspicious. He 
knew nothing of the letter, and could not 
understand why they had run away. He 
guessed they had taken a scare, and prob- 
ably they had scouted a day or two. Then, 
maybe, they had come to the conclusion 
that they could cover it all up. Hence their 
return. 

Some said that Morgan and Jake Lam- 
bert were guilty of the crime ; but old 
Josiah would not believe it, although he and 
the merchant had seen them pass the store 
early in the morning. He said he guessed 
Morgan had fallen from Grace, and was, 
perhaps, making moonshine whiskey. But, 
notwithstanding all this, he said that Mor- 
gan would not have done a thing like that. 
He simply could not believe it. But Floyd 
Winston, he said, was a mean, sneaking 
boy. He had been in jail and in the peni- 
tentiary, and had been a moonshiner. His 
father before him had been a moonshiner. 
It was in the breed. His wickedness was 
inherited, he said. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


109 


But Josiah forgot that in his earlier days 
— the good old days that were gone — he, 
himself, had operated a Government still. 
But he was protected in that. That was dif- 
ferent. The Government sent a man, who 
placed on his kegs a little stamp. And be- 
sides he had to pay a tax. He was freed 
from all blame. 

But, as Roy Garland had said, whiskey 
was whiskey; and whiskey made in a Gov- 
ernment still was no better than that made 
in a moonshine still. It was not the still 
that hurt; it was not the glass nor the bot- 
tle ; it was not the wood in the walls of the 
bar-room. It was the whiskey; it was the 
product of the still ; it was the fluid drained 
from the glass or the bottle ; it was the rat- 
tle-snake venom stored against the walls of 
the bar-room. And whiskey was whiskey, 
no matter where found or how made — and 
it was the whiskey that hurt. 

So the days passed on, and the suspicion 
against the boys grew stronger. The news 
of the engineer's death soon spread far and 
wide. Floyd was a regular terror, some 
people said — a moonshiner, a convict, and 
a murderer. Morgan and Jake had disap- 
peared, but it was the general belief that 
they were at their still. 

Under the suspicion that was daily grow- 
ing stronger, the two boys were arrested 
and taken before Squire Luke, a black-eyed, 
black-whiskered man. Gordan Martin’s evi- 


110 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

dence was taken first, and in his droll hu- 
mor he recounted what he knew. Then 
four or five other witnesses were sworn and 
took the stand in their turn ; but their evi- 
dence was worthless. The two accused 
boys were sworn next; and after each had 
told the whole story, including the trouble 
with Morgan and Jake, Floyd presented the 
letter signed by Ralph W. Fields, and ex- 
plained that the writer was the man who 
had shot him long ago. He had been work- 
ing in the mountains all the while, under 
the assumed name of Bernard Forest. When 
his story had been told, the Squire no longer 
believed the boys to be guilty. 

Maude Garland told under oath of the 
trouble with Morgan and Jake, to which she 
had been an eye witness. Then Flora was 
brought in to give the final testimony. The 
engineer had told her how he had lied about 
the would-be money, which Morgan and 
Jake believed would come in the mail on 
the day of the robbery. She said that Fields 
had been uneasy about the carrier. He had 
told her that with the two moonshiners be- 
lieving money would be in the pockets, the 
carrier was in danger. The Squire and all 
the bystanders, including even the Martins, 
were now convinced that the sanctified 
Lamberts were the murderers. 

To complete the evidence, one of the men 
who had helped strip the carrier brought in 
the bullets w'hich had lodged in his clothing. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


111 


They were both 32 calibre Winchester 
slugs, and had been either shot from one 
gun, or each had come from guns of the 
same bore. Morgan and Jake each had a 32 
Winchester. Floyd’s revolver was a large 
45 Colt and Roy’s was a small 32 Smith & 
Wesson. So the boys were dismissed, and 
the crowd went away fully convinced that 
the bullets had come from the Winchesters 
of Morgan and Jake. 


CHAPTER XX. 


M ORE than a hundred times each day 
the thin, slatternly woman in the 
Lambert cabin went to the door and 
looked longingly up and down the road. 
Her husband and eldest son had been gone 
since the day they rushed into the house, 
grabbed up a handful of cartridges, and then 
rushed out again, telling her to ask no ques- 
tions. They were gone, and now she knew 
why ; but she looked and longed for them to 
come in. The cabin was a desolate place. 
Her supply of bacon was running low. Her 
beans were drying on the vine, and her 
“roasting ears” were hardening. The chil- 
dren were almost naked, and autumn had 
already come. Hers was, indeed, a hard life. 
She must have some aid ; so she went to old 
Josiah Martin. But the cold refusal in his 
nasal twang grated so harshly on her feel- 
ings that she cried and wiped her eyes on 
her cotton apron. She went next to Gordon 
and laid her distressed condition before him, 
but he turned her away with a joke. Then 
around the ridge she went to Uncle Jack’s. 
She hated to appeal to the family that her 
husband disliked, but something had to be 
done. The children were suffering. Aunt 


AND OTHER STORIES 


113 


Nellie received her kindly and sent her 
away with a heavy load of provisions. The 
woman went home with a lighter heart ; but 
still she went to the door many times each 
day and looked anxiously up and down the 
road. 

sj< 

Dreamy autumn, dreary, wailing winter, 
and balmy, musical spring each had passed 
away in its turn, and now ’twas summer. 
Flora had asked Roy to forgive her, and he 
had done so. She was sad, and the boy pitied 
her. Her cheeks, he thought, were fading. 
Her eyes looked innocent and large, and had 
that same wistful, pleading gaze. She 
looked like the Flora of long ago — the old 
days that were gone. The girl would still 
blush with shame, but that shame was not 
now due to her father’s and brother’s dis- 
grace. It was something else. Again the 
big, blue, pleading eyes and the pale face 
found a place in the boy’s imagination. 
They were beckoning, pleading as they had 
done in the sweet old days that were gone. 

The four youngsters again took their 
walks as they had done when the engineer 
first came to the hills. Flora was, at last, 
able to understand that strange feeling for 
Roy, which had so long puzzled her. When 
the boy again talked to her of his old love, 
she let him understand that, if he would 
fully forgive her, he might call her his wife. 

The same evening he received that glo- 


114 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


rious intelligence, the four walked to the 
old graveyard on the Knob. Roy's happi- 
ness was complete. The old hills had re- 
gained their charm for him. God had come 
back to dwell in the hills. 

The roses on his little brother’s grave 
were in bloom — the same old roses, whose 
sweet perfume the little ragged girl smelled 
that terrible night long ago. In place of the 
sandstone, on which she sat that night, an- 
other yellow mound swelled up. Under it 
Mont Winston fulfilled the ancient prophecy 
which has never failed: “Unto dust thou 
shalt return.” The girl looked at the 
graves, and her eyes dimmed with tears. 
If her father had taken her advice, he, per- 
haps would still be alive, she thought. But 
then she thought of her own life since his 
death, and found a fault with it. It had not 
been perfect. 

The Garland boy and the Winston girl 
sat down under the tall cedars — those whis- 
pering, mourning guards for the dead — and 
watched the glories of the departing day. 
The sun was invisible, being hidden by 
ever-changing mountains of red clouds, 
which sent their towering crags and pinna- 
cles far up into the gold-illumined western 
sky. The peaks of the fiery mountain grad- 
ually settled down to gentle slopes and 
swells and the sight became more enchant- 
ing than ever. Slowly — very slowly — they 
rolled and tossed themselves, tearing into 


AND OTHER STORIES 


115 


ten thousand particles of spray, then, re- 
collecting, they settled down to one solid 
lake of molten gold. 

Twilight brought out night's creatures, 
and in countless quavering voices, they took 
up their oft-repeated song. The light from 
the fiery lake had simmered down to a faint 
glow. One dim, pale star twinkled in the 
northern sky. The moon came up from 
behind a dark bluff and flooded the forest 
with her white, tranquilizing radiance. The 
night was warm, grand, dreamy. Ah, yes* 
God had come back to dwell in the hills 
again. An owl thundered over on the Di- 
vide. Was it the same one that hooted 
over there that awful night long ago ? 
The boy and the girl were silent. Both 
were back in the old days that were gone. 

Slowly the moon, broad and white, rose 
up in the pallid sky. From moonlit spur and 
shadowy cove came the plaintive call of 
whippoorwills, blending softly with the 
song of night's choir. 

They looked over at the Divide. A light 
was shining through Uncle Jack's window 
— just like it had shone that night long ago. 
Flora placed her dimpled arms around the 
boy's neck and pressed her lips to his own. 
The strong, healthy lad held her firmly to 
his breast; and close together, their hearts 
beat together — beat as one. 

Flora called Maude, who, with Floyd, 
joined her and Roy at the gate ; and the 


116 A MOONSHINE R’ S FOLLY 


four happy youngters started homeward. 
At the corner of the old graveyard they 
stopped in amazement. Two dark figures 
were crouched by the wretched palings. In- 
stantly the figures took the shape of men 
and straightened themselves before the as- 
tonished boys and frightened girls. Some- 
thing bright flashed in the hand of each ; and 
in one report two pistol shots were fired. 
Floyd heard a bullet close by his ear, and 
Roy felt the hot blood trickle down his 
face. The boys drew their own guns, and 
in quick succession, two more shots were 
fired. The villains dropped their glittering 
weapons and fell side by side. 

The moonbeams fell fully on the faces of 
the ruffians, and the boys recognized their 
victims as Morgan and Jake Lambert. The 
hypocrites, the moonshiners, the murderers 
were no more. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


T HE murderers had been laid to rest. 
Great excitement followed the kill- 
ing of the Lamberts. It is always 
thus in the hills. There are always men 
who will sympathize with even cold-blood* 
ed murderers. After a man dies, some will 
say : “Well, he had his faults, but he was a 
good man.” But the excitement soon 
passed off and all became quiet again. 

In the early fall Uncle Jack made ready 
for two weddings. All the neighbors, with- 
out an exception, were invited ; and nearly 
all came. The celebration of the two mar- 
riages was a jolly affair. It was conducted 
in pure old mountain style ; and the table 
groaned under the weight of good, old- 
fashioned dainties, which were served out to 
the guests with a lavish hand. Uncle Jack 
made music for the merry-makers, and 
Aunt Nellie conversed with other old 
dames, and calmly smoked her pipe. But 
no whiskey was there. Uncle Jack had 
asked all in a friendly way to bring none, 
and his wish was respected. 

All night the guests danced the good old 
mountain jigs. Few fiddlers could excel 
the old man on “Sourwood Mountain,” 
“Old Dan Tucker,” and “Jennie, put the 


118 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

Kettle On.” So, after a joyful time, the 
neighbors departed to their homes. 

Aunt Nellie’s secret wish was now grati- 
fied: Her children were married — Roy and 
Flora, and Floyd and Maude. She called the 
Winston boy and girl her children. She 
blamed herself more than she should have 
done for Flora’s elopement with the en- 
gineer. She said: “People never gits too 
old to l’arn, and about the best thing fer 
’em to l’arn to do is to watch their gals.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


T HE few years that have elapsed since 
the closing scenes of this story 
have wrought wonderful changes in 
the old hills. Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie 
have been laid to rest in the old graveyard 
on the Knob. Many, many of the good old 
men and women have been laid there and 
elsewhere to sleep the dreamless sleep. 
Many foreigners have made themselves 
homes in the hills. The very complexion 
of the hills is changed. The railroad on 
Dry Fork has been completed, and now it 
intersects with the Clinch Valley line. The 
moonshine stills are now few and far be- 
tween, and the good citizens of West Vir- 
ginia have voted whiskey out of their state. 
Lumber companies are still at work, strip- 
ping the hills of their timber. Scarred and 
cheerless are the old hills now. 

But from the Divide the West Virginia 
hills look the same as in days of yore. The 
same purple haze — the same veil of mist — 
hangs over them still ; and the sunset is no 
less grand than of old. Many of the old 
neighbors have moved away to distant 
states, among them, Gordon Martin. But 
old Josiah still lives at his old home. He is 


120 A MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 


the same old Josiah, and still wears his blue 
bandanna tied over his ears. Roy and 
Flora and Floyd and Maude have never 
moved away. They still reside in the hills, 
it makes no difference where, and it is said 
that they are happy. 

The two young mountaineers help the 
thin, pale widow of Morgan Lambert clothe 
and feet her children, whom they were 
forced to make orphans, and they say she 
is very grateful. She goes no more to the 
door to look for her husband and son, for 
she knows they will come no more. 

Often the two brothers-in-law walk with 
their wives to the old graveyard on the 
Knob ; and in summer they deck some of 
them wdth flowers. Sometimes they remain 
there until the moon gets up and the whip- 
poor-wills and fall crickets and katydids be- 
gin their mournful song. 

Both Flora and Maude are mothers now ; 
and in their offspring can be traced the 
same rich blood that flowed in the veins of 
their Colonial forefathers. In their broad 
foreheads can be read the same intelligence 
that framed the Constitution and the Dec- 
laration of Independence. In their manly 
faces can be seen the same fighting spirit 
that made us a free and independent na- 
tion. 

The brawn-and-brain of a great state has, 
through inactivity, fallen asleep. For years 
it has lain dormant in the old hills. After 


AND OTHER STORIES 


121 


that long, refreshing sleep, it is coming 
forth. The mountaineer's sun is rising; his 
day is dawning. Ere long such men as Roy 
Garland and Floyd Winston must redeem 
the old state from vice and regain for her 
the glorious name of her youth — the good 
old days that are gone. 



A PAUPER’S RISE 


A PAUPER'S RISE. 


CHAPTER I. 

LL night a warm, steady rain had 
fallen, and the hills lay steeping un- 



^ ^ der a dense, gray fog. The sun was 
just rising, and with rays greatly sub- 
dued he soon left the hilltops destitute of 
their misty shroud. Little by little the 
yellow light descended the verdant moun- 
tain wall of Dismal valley, crowding the 
vapor down to the creek-bed and up the 
opposite coves. 

On top of a spur a tall, dark lad sat 
astride of a stake-and-ridered fence looking 
down into the valley below. No shoes were 
on his scratched and bruised feet, and his 
old straw hat was mended with willow 
twigs. Under him leaned his old musket — 
the rusted relic of his grandfather — and 
from his shoulder hung his bullet pouch and 
powder horn. Down there at the mouth of 
the cove to his right lived little Fay. Her 
father's cabin was not yet visible, for the 
fog still lingered about the mouth of the 
cove. He was afraid to go down there, 
for old Abe, the girl's father, had forbidden 
him to enter his house again. Abe Rich* 
ardson was a dangerous man, and the boy 


AND OTHER STORIES 


125 


knew that it would not be safe for him to 
go down until he left for the mill. He al- 
ways started about eight o’clock ; so the lad 
decided that when he should see him leave 
the house, he would go down and have his 
last little talk with Fay. 

The boy’s father and mother were both 
dead, and since their death he had had no 
permanent home. In the summer any of 
the neighbors would let him work for his 
board and clothes, but in winter no one 
cared to have anything to do with him. All 
that summer he had worked for Abe Rich- 
ardson, but now the old man had said that 
he and his daughter were getting too inti- 
mate with each other and had told him to 
go. He had started the evening before, but 
had gone no farther than where he now 
sat. He had slept all night there in a fence 
corner under a slab. He meant to slip down 
and tell Fay something, and then he would 
go, he knew not where. Being now six- 
teen years old, he felt sure that he could 
get a job somewhere and make some motley. 
He had never touched a piece of money 
in his life. He thought it would be a 
mighty big thing to own even a dime. 

He could barely remember his parents, 
but the scenes of their burials were vividly 
impressed upon his mind. He could re- 
member seeing the great yawning graves, 
the long, rough coffins and the crowd of 
rough men and women that had been pres- 


126 A MOONSHINE ITS FOLLY 


ent at each funeral. He also remembered 
the place in which he had lived for five 
years thereafter. He could still see the 
withered old women with toothless gums 
and the rheumatic, half-crazy old men who 
had been his companions in that place. 
The boy had been in the almshouse, and 
he was afraid that if he stayed in that 
neighborhood any longer Old Abe would 
send him back. When he had become old 
enough to work, the old man himself had 
brought him out to his own home. He 
had hired him out to the neighbors, and 
the money which the poor little boy had 
earned the old man kept for himself. Now 
he could make his home there no longer. 

The sun climbed slowly up in the sky 
and drove the fog out of the valley. The 
cabin at the mouth of the cove could now 
be seen by the boy on the fence. A spiral 
of blue smoke rose in a feathery column 
from the kitchen chimney and vanished in 
the sunlight. Old Abe was watering his 
horses at the river and Fay was milking at 
the barn. How beautiful she appeared to 
the lad as she tripped about the barnyard 
in her little white sunbonnet. How he 
wished he were down there. But he could 
not go just yet. 

When the old man had put the horses 
back in the barn he started down the 
river. He was gone to the mill. When he 
was out of sight, the boy slipped down 


AND OTHER STORIES 


127 


from the rail and pulled his musket 
through a crack. He turned around and 
saw Fay going into the cabin. Slowly and 
cautiously he dropped down the steep 
spur and went up to the door. 

“I want somethin" to eat, Fay,” he said, 
stepping into the house, and his eyes filled 
with tears. 

The girl placed a lunch on the table. 

“Where did you stay last night, Leon?” 
she asked. 

“I didn’t stay nowhars; I laid up yander 
on the p’int.” 

The girl looked away. She knew why 
he had lingered all night up there in the 
rain. 

“You had better be in a hurry,” she said, 
“fer pa forgot his sack a while ago, an’ he’s 
liable to come back after it ; and ye know if 
he wuz to find ye here — .” She stopped 
and turned her head away again. 

“I’m a-goin’ in a minute, my little gal,” 
said the boy. “I jest come down to tell ye 
good-by. I’ve gotto go, an’ I lowed I 
mought not never see ye any more, an’ jest 
couldnt’ go till I could tell ye somethin’. 
People don’t seem to want me here any 
longer, so I reckon I’d better be a-goin’. 
I don’t know whar I’m goin’, but I’m goin’ 
somewhars.” He hastily finished his 
lunch, then picked up his old gun. “I hate 
mighty bad to leave ye, but I don’t see no 
other way.” He turned and faced the girl 


128 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


and offered her his sun-tanned hand. 
“Good-by, little gal,” he said, “ye see how 
hit is: Yer pa is agin us an’ he has got hit 
in fer me. Ef ye can, try to think of me 
sometimes, fer I’ll alius think of you. I’m 
a-goin’ away, I don’t know whar; but 
mebby some day — ” He stopped and 
wiped his eyes on his short sleeve. When 
he looked up the girl was gone. As he 
stepped out he saw her standing in the 
chimney corner crying. He started toward 
the gate, but before he reached it, he heard 
the rough voice of Old Abe. 

“Stop thar, boy,” thundered the old man 
angrily. 

Leon started to run and reached the 
gate, but before he could open it the big 
mountaineer had caught him by the shoul- 
ders. 

“I thot I told ye to never come hyah 
ag’in,” he shouted in the frightened boy’s 
ear. That was not the first time he had 
spoken harshly to the boy, but somehow 
his words had a deeper meaning now than 
ever before. 

The big man unfastened the gate, held 
it open for a moment and said: “Ef I ever 
catch ye back inside this here yard ag’in 
I’ll take ye to the pore-house that very 
day. Now do ye hear? You be damned 
shore ye never show yer carcass roun’ hyah 
again.” Giving the lad a severe kick, he 
fastened the gate in his face. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


129 


Once more the boy turned his back to 
the cabin and started up the hill. When 
he had reached the top of the spur where 
he had sat that morning, he climbed again 
to the same rail and looked down again 
at little Fay's cabin. His last bright hope 
was now shattered. Where would he go? 
He knew not. Climbing down from the 
fence, he shouldered up his beloved old 
musket and started up the ridge. “I don't 
know whar I'm a-goin', but I'm a-goin' 
somewhars," he muttered to himself. 


CHAPTER II. 


T HE day passed away sadly with little 
Fay. Leon could come to her home 
no more ; for her father had al- 
ready said so, and she knew he was a man 
who seldom broke his word. Many were 
the little hardships the boy had taken upon 
himself for her ; but now he could never do 
her little errands again. He was gone — she 
knew not where. She guessed she would 
never see him again. It pained her much 
so see her father treat him so rudely, and 
she had cried almost all the time since that 
disgusting sight. 

The old man scolded his daughter se- 
verely after the boy had gone. She ran out 
and cried again, and would not come back 
in the house until he had threatened to 
whip her. 

“Hit looks like ye’d have better sense ’an 
to want to court one o’ them low down 
Vances,” said Old Abe. “Thar’s plenty o’ 
boys ’at aint paurpers ye could git. Ef ye 
wouldn’t show that boy no friendship, he’d 
marry Lottie Harmon. That would be a 
purty equal match, an’ nobody wouldn’t 
have no objection to them a-marryin’.” 
Lottie Harmon’s mother was dead, and 


AND OTHER STORIES 


131 


the girl made her home with Jonathan, her 
father’s brother, who lived at the Bend a 
mile down the river. Jonathan’s wife was 
Abe Richardson’s sister, and was a very ill- 
natured, crabbed kind of woman. Lottie 
had lived in the family almost all her life, 
and had never known anything but hard- 
ship and cruel treatment at the hands of 
her aunt. 

Jonathan was a merchant and had run his 
business on a pretty lively scale for four or 
five years. But, at last, he got in debt to 
numerous wholesale houses, and being un- 
able to pay out, his store was locked. Suits 
for the recovery of these debts were pend- 
ing against him, and court was close at 
hand. A rumor was circulated that Jona- 
than and his wife had carried goods out of 
the store after the wholesale companies had 
closed them out, and had hidden them about 
the house. It was said that the orphan girl 
had seen them do it. She was summoned 
to appear at the county seat on the second 
day of court to testify against her uncle and 
aunt, but on the morning she had expected 
to start she was missing. 

The Post-office was kept at Jonathan’s 
house and one of his sons was post master. 
The mail was carried on horse-back by 
Mose Henderson, who had been a squire, 
and who was a preacher of the sanctified 
belief. On account of his doctrine of Holi- 
ness and Sanctification, he was called “Holy 


132 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

Moses” by everyone who knew him. Mose 
was a faithful mail carrier and was well 
liked by all. 

After hunting about the place for a few 
minutes, Jonathan and his wife declared 
that the missing girl had run away and 
gone to her father, who was a fugitive from 
justice in West Virginia. That was rea- 
sonable. Neighbors believed that the bash- 
ful girl, rather than face the stern Judge 
and the inquisitive lawyers, had run away 
until after court was over. 

Jonathan saddled his horse and rode off 
toward the county seat, satisfied with the 
fact that the chief witness against him 
would be absent. 

The next morning big Israel Hopkins 
came down and said that he had had a 
dream. He had dreamed, he said, that his 
wife was drowned in Jonathan's mill pond. 
When he had been told that the girl was 
missing, he declared that his dream had 
come true. He asked permission to search 
the dam, but Jonathan's wife refused and 
ordered him to leave. “No,” she said, “ef 
Lottie has drowned herself, hit aint in the 
mill dam, fer she wuz alius too 'fraid o’ 
hit. Ef she is drowned at all, hit's in the 
hole o' warter down yander below the mill.” 

Perhaps big Israel had his dream with 
his eyes open, but vision or none, he began 
to make ready to drag the dam. 

Israel had been living in the neighbor- 


AND OTHER STORIES 


133 


hood for four or five years and had come 
from no one knew where. He was of gigan- 
tic stature and had a savage face set with 
ox-like eyes and graced by a prominent nose 
which supported a pair of brass-rimmed 
spectacles, which were fastened to a pair of 
ponderous, protruding ears. He made his 
living by repairing clocks and sewing ma- 
chines; and very often he made mysterious 
trips to nobody knew where. When all the 
timepieces had been put in good working 
order he had no trade, but he still remained 
on Dismal and made those mysterious trips. 
How he made his living after his trade left 
him, nobody knew. 

His search was soon rewarded. After 
probing about in the water a few minutes, 
he succeeded in locating the girl's body, and 
dragged it to shore. Jonathan’s wife went 
into hysterics. With loud lamentations she 
mourned the loss of her husband’s niece. 

The body was carried to the house and 
preparations for burial were hastily made. 
The news was quickly circulated and a large 
crowd soon gathered. Holy Moses came 
riding leisurely along after the mail and 
wanted to know why such a crowd had 
assembled. He was told that Lottie had 
drowned herself, and that they were making 
ready for burial. But then the meek, holy- 
looking countenance left his face, and in 
stern tones he demanded the interment post- 
poned until a post mortem inquest could be 


134 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

held. Two doctors and the necessary* num- 
ber of men for the inquest were at once 
summoned. Upon examination, it was 
found that her neck had been broken and 
no water had entered her lungs. She had 
not died in the water. 

Jonathan came riding in while the inquest 
was being held. The body was taken to 
the cemetery for burial and Mose was asked 
to conduct the funeral services. In his 
prayer he made such fiery appeals to the 
Almighty to show who had committed the 
crime that Jonathan’s wife fainted. She and 
her husband and Grant Richardson, who 
had stayed at Harmon’s the night the girl 
was killed, were arrested and taken to jail 
immediately after the burial. 

With tearful eyes, all pleaded their inno- 
cence and insisted that Leon Vance had 
been the slayer of the girl. Old Abe Rich- 
ardson upheld them in their argument. He 
said there was meanness in the boy’s head 
when he left ; and so darkly did he paint 
the lad’s reputation, that Big Israel was 
sent to hunt him and bring him back. 


CHAPTER III. 


O N up the ridge went the tall, ragged 
lad. He was leaving everything be- 
hind that was of any importance to 
him. That was just one little girl — Fay 
Richardson. Often he stopped and leaned 
on the muzzle of his musket and looked 
back — back toward her cabin home. The 
house itself was out of sight, but the steep 
fields, the high cliffs in the Bend' and the 
mountain road were still visible. Over 
there in those fields and on top of those 
cliffs he and Fay had played together when 
they were small children. Over there in 
those fields thy had rolled rocks down the 
hill and watched them splash into the river 
below. Over on the cliffs they used to sit 
and cast acorns and pine cones into the 
clear, shining water at their base and down 
there at the mill they had sat side by side 
many a day and cast their hooks for the 
beautiful bass. 

The most miserable being must have 
some fond recollections, and it makes no 
difference how sad has been his life, there 
are days in his memory which will cause 
his heart to leap with joy. The present, n<*> 
matter how sad and bitter, becomes sweeter 
as it is buried beneath vanished years. 


136 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


The boy was leaving many friends — not 
human friends, for he had but one. But the 
old cliffs, the trees, Old Abe's big black 
dog, the beautiful, shady river and Fay were 
his friends, and he was leaving them — leav- 
ing them all. 

He walked steadily on until he had 
reached the top of an elevated knob. It 
was high noon, so he would stop there and 
take his last look at his old, faimliar haunts. 
He would leave the ridge there, cross the 
little creek to his left and pass over the 
next spur of the mountain, and then the 
next until he should come to somebody's 
house — until he got “somewhars." He 
stopped and dropped the breech of his gun 
to the ground and rested his hand on the 
muzzle. Far down the valley he could see 
the row of white cliffs and below them the 
river shone like a mirror in the sun. As he 
stood there he took a picture. His thin legs 
and the old musket were the tripods ; his 
head was the camera; his dark eyes were 
the lens and his brain was the sensitive 
plate. He gave the exposure sufficient time 
to bring out all the details. In the hidden 
recesses of his mind he would preserve that 
picture as long as he lived. 

All evening he trudged on over hills and 
across creeks and marshes, and at late twi- 
light dragged his weary limbs up to the 
door of a mountaineer’s cabin. He found 


AND OTHER STORIES 


137 


lodging in the cabin that night, and early 
next morning he set out again. 

The Hardwood Lumber Company was at 
work on Knox. The boy had often thought 
of going to them for a job. They were now 
close at hand, so to them he went. The 
foreman hired him to throw rocks out of 
the road for the teamsters, and he set to 
work, glad with the thought of having got 
a job. He had been at work just a week 
when big Israel Hopkins came into camp 
and inquired for him. Rather reluctantly 
the foreman surrendered up the boy, for he 
had proven a faithful hand from the begin- 
ning. 

Court was still in session in the county 
seat. Jonathan and his wife and Grant 
Richardson were still in jail, and now big 
Israel placed Leon in with them. Next day 
came the examining trial. Jonathan and 
his wife each pleaded not guilty and said 
they knew Leon Vance was the murderer. 
They stated that he had tried to get Lottie 
to marry him, and, upon her refusal, he had 
threatened to kill her. He had been driven 
from Old Abe’s two or three days before 
the killing of the girl, but they said they 
guessed he had slipped back and done the 
work and then had gone again. 

When Grant Richardson was brought be- 
fore the Judge, he swore that Jonathan’s 
wife had killed the girl with a chair. She 
had been trying to get the girl to run away, 


138 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

he said, until after court, but this she had 
refused to do, whereupon, the woman 
jumped up and struck her on the back with 
the chair in which she had been sitting, 
killing her instantly. Terribly frightened, 
Jonathan took the body and threw it over 
the cliff into the river. That was all. 

Richardson and Leon were released and 
Jonathan gave bond ; but his wife was al- 
lowed no bail. Jonathan went back home 
and Grant Richardson took a bee line for 
West Virginia. Leon returned to his work. 

At the November court Mrs. Harmon was 
found guilty of the murder and was given 
fifteen years in the state penitentiary. 
Everybody thought that Jonathan should go 
with his wife, but surprising to all he came 
back home a free man. 


CHAPTER IV. 


T HE foreman gave Leon back his job. 
The boy was a steady, honest 
worker. In a little while he learned 
to drive horses and took charge of a team. 
For a year he worked and then went to 
school. He had never been in school be- 
fore, and for a few days he was in an em- 
barrassing situation. All his classmates 
were tiny children, but he meant to put 
himself in the class of larger boys and 
girls before the school was out — and he 
did. 

After the school had closed he again took 
charge of his team. The team foreman re- 
signed, and so much interest had the boy 
taken in his work that the Superintendent 
gave him the place. But he could not go 
to school now and hold his job; so he 
bought books and took them to his room, 
and in his leisure hours and at night he 
studied them. At the end of two years he 
had been promoted to general woods fore- 
man. After another year the Superintend- 
ent decided to give him a change by plac- 
ing him in charge of the Company store. 

Leon had grown very tall, and a com- 
manding appearance he made in the fash- 


140 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

ionable clothes he now wore. Many a 
young woman would have gladly become 
his wife, but the boy still remembered what 
he had started to say to Fay the morning 
Old Abe drove him away from his house. 
Now and then he could hear of the girl, 
but he was lost to her. The old man was 
sending her to school at the county seat, 
and the boy read in the county paper of 
the high grades she was making. He 
guessed she had forgotten the little boy 
whom her father kicked out of the yard 
long ago. 

It happened that the Company owned a 
large tract of timber land on Dismal. Over 
there two miles above the Bend they would 
set their mill. When they were ready to 
begin operations there, Leon was asked 
to take charge of the job, and he accepted. 
Under his wise guidance active work was 
soon going on. 

Abe Richardson came up one day and 
modestly asked the young Superintendent 
for a logging contract. “I ’spose yer name 
is Vance,” he said, offering Leon his big 
hand. “We’ve got a few Vance’s aroun’ 
hyah, but I don’t reckon you air no kin to 
them.” Then the old man asked for the 
job, and the Superintendent told him that 
he might go to work. Old Abe invited the 
young man to bring a party of young peo- 
ple down to the bend on the following Sun- 
day. When the old mountaineer had re- 


AND OTHER STORIES 


141 


ceived a promise to come, he went back 
home much pleased with the “big boss.” 

“Fay,” said he, “they've got one o' the 
finest fellers fer a boss I ever seed, and the 
beatenest thing about hit is he's a Vance. 
He's got a ugly name, but I reckon he must 
be a different breed o' dawgs to these 
'roun' hyah. Hit jest seemed 'at he 
couldn't be good enough to me, an' he has 
done an' promised to come down to see us 
nixt Sunday. You must be mighty nice an’ 
put on yer best dress, fer he shore is a 
nice-lookin' feller. 

Sunday morning came and Leon and his 
party set out to see the beautiful scenery 
at the Bend. When the pleasure seekers 
had entered the narrow gorge, all were 
awe-stricken, but none could see in that 
narrow little valley what the young Super- 
intendent could. “Mebby some day,” he 
said to himself as they came in sight of 
Fay's cabin. 

Abe told his daughter to go with the 
party to the top of the cliffs in the bend. 
Leon helped her up the bluff, and the girl 
wondered why he was so silent when the 
others were so gay and talkative. But the 
boy was thinking. He was thinking of 
the two children who had in earlier days 
climbed the same bluff in the same fashion. 
When they had gained the top, he looked 
down at the clear, leaping water. Ah. 
what glorious thoughts were associated 


142 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

with that pure, cool stream. But the girl 
did not know that the tall, well-dressed 
young man at her side was the same little 
ragged boy who used to roam those wild 
crags with her. 

The two sat down under a small pine and 
the man picked up a cone and tossed it into 
the river below. The girl found an acorn 
and dropped it into the water, and as it 
touched the surface, Leon saw tears start- 
ing in her eyes. The faint little splash 
awoke in her a longing for that little old 
ragged boy. She watched the tiny waves 
receding in ever-increasing circles from the 
spot where the acorn had been dropped. 
In her mind time’s sluggish waves were 
likewise parting, leaving exposed the days 
long gone when that little boy had done 
the very same thing by her side. 

“Do you come up here very often?” he 
asked. 

The girl hesitated a moment and said: 
I used to come almost every day, but 
now—” She paused and threw another 
acorn over the cliff. “But now I seldom 
come.” 

Leon looked up the river. Up there he 
could see the same rail on which he had 
sat the morning he said good-by to Fay. 
When he looked again at the girl, tears 
were streaming down her cheeks. 

"Why do you cry?” he asked. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


143 


“I — I was thinking — of a — little boy/' 
said the weeping girl. 

“Tell me about him ,” pleaded the young 
man, “but perhaps he was a brother of 
yours, or a sweetheart, maybe, who fell 
over these rocks. 

“No, no,” sobbed the girl, “he was not a 
brother, neither was he a sweetheart; and 
he never fell over these rocks, but it might 
have been better for him if he had. He 
was a poor little boy who never had any 
chance in life, and father treated him badly. 
He went away and a foul crime was com- 
mitted by my aunt. They accused him of 
being guilty and brought him back. He 
was not guilty — I knew he was not — but 
he went away, and I have never heard of him 
again. We used to come up here and throw 
acorns and pine cones over into the river, and 
the way we have been doing here reminds me 
so much — ” She could not finish her story, 
for she saw that he was weeping too. 

He put his arm around the girl’s waist, 
but she tried to take it away. ’’Don’t you 
remember what he said,” he whispered 
softly; “Mebby some day?” 

The girl looked surprised, but Leon 
drew her closer to him and said : “The poor 
little boy is all right — don’t you see he is? 
Leon Vance is my name.” 

The girl was unable to speak. She only 
gave way to the strong man’s embrace and 
nestled like a child in his arms. 


144 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

Next Sunday he came back again. In 
the evening he asked Old Abe a question. 

“Well,” said the old man “hit’s a mighty 
short courtship, but I reckon hit’s all 
right.” 

So the wedding day came and Leon and 
Fay were married. After the wedding, 
which was conducted in pure old mountain 
style, Abe’s son-in-law told him a story. 
As he proceeded with his narrative, the old 
man smiled and frowned alternately, but 
the smiles were by no means pleasant, and 
the frowns were not at all menacing and 
threatening as they had once been. 

When the story had been concluded, Abe 
slapped his jeans-clad thigh and laughed 
long and loud. “Well,” he said, “hit does 
beat the devil how things will turn out 
sometimes.” 


THE HUSKING BEE THAT 
DECIDED 



THE HUSKING BEE THAT DECIDED 


CHAPTER I. 

L ATE in the evening of a crisp, dry 
October day. 

On an intersecting spur of the 
Great Divide stood a low, log cabin, and 
from its brown stone chimney a thin col- 
umn of blue smoke drifted lazily upward 
in the dreamy autumn air. To the right of 
the cabin, in a steep cove, lay the corn- 
field now bleached and cheerless. Its crop 
had been gathered, and now nothing re- 
mained but the dry stubble. To the left, in 
another cove, a spring of cool water bub- 
bled forth in a clear stream which found 
its way into a log milk house. A narrow 
path led from the spring to the cabin, and 
up this path Minnie Wilson, the country 
school teacher gracefully walked, carrying 
a wooden pail .of the sparkling water. 
After taking her burden in the house, she 
took her seat in the doorway, and for a 
time sat watching the sun go down be- 
hind a mountain of red clouds. To-night 
was the husking bee, and in an hour the 
crowd would be gathering. All evening 
preparations had been going on inside the 


148 A, MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 


house : The old mother was busy in the 
little kitchen baking her pies and sweet 
potatoes, and the father and the boys were 
at the barn rounding up the pile of corn 
in order to accommodate the large crowd 
which would surely be there. 

George May, who was teaching a neigh- 
boring school, would be there. She had 
been flirting with May, and she feared that 
he and Claude Davis, her first sweetheart, 
would have trouble. Claude was a moun- 
tain boy of twenty, and had been her con- 
stant companion since both were mere chil- 
dren. She knew she was treating him 
wrong, but somehow, that gay young fellow 
from a distant state had gained her affec- 
tions, and she was a little perplexed, for she 
had always loved Claude, or at least, she had 
thought she did. She was troubled, for both 
would surely be there. She had risen and 
was just turning to go inside the house, 
when a cheery ‘‘hello” caused her to turn 
her pretty head. Before the door stood the 
polite little teacher smiling and bowing with 
his soft black hat in his hand. 

‘‘Mr. May,” said the blushing girl, “you 
really surprised me. I didn’t see you at all 
until you spoke. I’m so glad to see you — 
come in.” And she led him to a rude rocker, 
and bade him be content, making some apol- 
ogies for leaving him alone by telling him 
that she must help her mother. 

The crowd of youngsters were coming. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


149 


A full moon had risen, and the multi-col- 
ored forest looked dreamy under the white, 
misty light. The huskers came slowly up 
the lane singing “Little Brown Jug.” 

With a pang of shame, Minnie saw 
Claude lead the way into the yard. What 
would he think of her when he saw that 
finely-dressed young man in the house? 
This would be their first meeting, and she 
knew it would be an unhappy one for 
Claude, if not for both. She herself had in- 
vited May, but she had let her father invite 
Claude. Her mother had told her that it 
was a shame to treat the best boy in the 
neighborhood in that way, and now she 
knew it was the truth. Everybody knew 
that Claude loved her, but who knew any- 
thing about this foreign young fellow who 
might be versed in flattery as well as in 
politeness? Claude had been invited to the 
husking and May to the party which was 
to follow; and it was evident by his spot- 
less linen and well-brushed suit, that it was 
for the party only that he had come. 

The crowd entered the cabin, and their 
leader, Claude Davis, without pausing went 
straight to the kitchen. Taking a seat by 
the stove, he sat for a time in sullen silence. 

“Minnie,” he said at last “who is that high 
falutin' feller you've got in there? He 
wanted to be so dad-burned polite and 
jumped up so quick and sudden, that he 


150 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

come durned near crackin' his head ae’in 
the j’ist.” 

“Oh, Claude, that’s Mr. May who is teach- 
ing at the Johnson schoolhouse. He is such 
a nice man. Come, you must meet him. ,, 

“No, never mind,” returned the boy, “I 
don’t keer nothin’ about gittin’ acquainted 
with ’im. Guess I’d better be goinV 

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” hurriedly 
replied the girl. “Why, Claude, you’re so 
jealous. Now you sit right back down.” 
And she pushed him gently toward his re- 
cently vacated chair. With silent obedience, 
he resumed his seat and sat looking blankly 
into the moonlight. 

Supper over, the crowd — all but May — 
proceeded to the barn where, until near mid- 
night, they worked with all their might 
husking the golden corn. The scene can 
best be pictured by quoting these words 
from Whittier: 

Swung o’er the heaped-up harvest, from 
pitch-forks in the mow, 

Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleas- 
ant scene below ; 

The growing pile of husks behind, the 
golden ears before, 

And laughing eyes and busy hands and 
brown cheeks glimmering o’er.” 

When the last ear had been husked, the 
crowd hurried to the house to begin the rol- 
licking dance. Claude Davis came to the 


AND OTHER STORIES 


151 


door, but no farther, for on the bed Minnie 
and George May were sitting close together. 
With deep regret, Minnie heard the gate 
close behind her first lover. Painful, indeed, 
were his rapidly retreating footfalls. “He 
will never forgive me,” she thought as his 
muffled tread died away in the distance. 


CHAPTER II. 


T HE fiddles were now tuned and the 
dancers took the floor. For half an 
hour the merry mountain air: “Sour- 
wood Mountain” enthused the tireless danc- 
ers to do their very best. 

The fiddlers stopped, and the perspiring 
dancers dashed outside to cool. 

“Low bass,” cried one of the musicians, 
"“let's tune fer “Soldier’s Joy.” The next 
'dance had just started when two pistol shots 
rang out down the Divide. The music sud- 
denly ceased and two or three of the boys 
ran out and emptied their revolvers into 
the air. In the mountains a man is consid- 
ered a coward if he hears a shot and will 
not reply. 

“Claude’s tryin’ his gun,” said one of the 
young mountaineers. 

“Yes,” said another, “he’s a-trying’ to 
banter Mr. May, fer he looked at ’im as mad 
as a ole settin’ hen jest about the time he 
left.” 

“I don’t care for his bantering shots,” 
said May, “it only shows his breeding. He 
wants us to know he has a gun.” 

The old mother turned a frowning face 
toward the speaker, but said nothing. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


153 


The fiddlers now resumed their music and 
May and Minnie took the floor. The moun- 
tain boys loked on in envy as the handsome 
young man danced so gracefully. After a 
few minutes of vigorous playing, the musi- 
cians again stopped, and a loud “hurrah” 
rang out as four horsemen rode up to the 
gate. 


CHAPTER III. 


W ITH a heart full of jealousy for May 
and bitter anger for Minnie, Claude 
climbed the steep spur to the Great 
Divide. Reaching the ridge road he stopped. 
The dance had begun. He could hear the 
merry music of the fiddles and the noisy 
dancing of his friends. Minnie was down 
there dancing with another man, he guessed. 
How could he ever bear it? He had loved 
her passionately for years and had honestly 
believed that she loved him. But now had 
come the final test. She had surely deceived 
him. What could she see in that little, pale, 
tender weakling? He was educated but to 
what extent he knew not. Perhaps he had 
just education enough to teach school. That 
wasn't much, for Minnie had been teaching, 
and he knew that her education was very 
limited. Perhaps he knew no more than 
Minnie. But education was a matter of very 
little importance to him, so he resolved to 
come back next morning and whip the little 
dude within an inch of his life. 

When the music in the cabin had ceased 
he started sullenly down the ridge. The 
broad, sandy road stretched out before him 
like a muddy stream. An owl uttered his 
midnight call, but he heard it not. He 


AND OTHER STORIES 


155 


shook his fist in rage at the light that was 
shining in the cabin as he heard another 
dance begin ; then shutting his ears to the 
irritating noise, he ran for a hundred yards 
or more, but stopped in amazement at the 
sounds of the pistol shots. 

“Some drunk fool/' he said aloud, “they'll 
have hell down at ole Dad's yit." 

Scarcely had he uttered these words, 
when a boisterous laugh and several oaths 
greeted his ears. 

Partly to avoid trouble, and partly from 
the instinct to eavesdrop, he stepped behind 
a large chestnut tree and watched four 
riders go by. A few yards farther up the 
road all stopped and a large bottle was 
passed around. Claude recognized in the 
group of ruffians Devil Lige Lawson and 
his two red-headed sons, Rile and Eli. The 
other was a stranger. The Wilsons and the 
Lawsons had been life-long enemies, and 
never had any dealings with each other ex- 
cept to deal exchanging blows. It was only 
two years ago that old Lige had killed one 
of the Wilsons from the bushes, and only 
a month ago old Dad Wilson had made old 
Lige and his two red-headed sons show 
him the soles of their “brogans." Claude 
had been constantly in touch with both 
clans, and probably knew more of their de- 
signs than anyone else. He was sure that 
they were now up to some mischief. Per- 
haps they had heard of the husking bee, and 


156 A MOONSHINE ITS FOLLY 

were now on their way to clean them out. 
This prediction was confirmed when he 
heard old Lige say, “Yes, by God, we’ll 
have the whole damned family, corn shuck- 
ers, fiddlers and all to give us a trot.” 

“I knowed the ole guy was up to some- 
thin’ mean,” said Claude, stepping back into 
the road. 

The storm that had been raging in him 
had now subsided. He was no longer angry 
with Minnie. The feeling of anger had 
given way to one of fear. He feared for 
her safety. He hardly knew what to do. It 
was too late to slip around the ruffians and 
apprise the merry-makers of their danger, 
for the scoundrels were nearly down to the 
cabin already. To call would be less than 
useless with such noisy hilarity going on 
inside. Consequently, he knew nothing bet- 
ter than to walk along behind. 

The dancing had ceased. The party had 
ridden up to the gate. A loud “hurrah” 
came from old Lige’s bearded throat. It 
was then that Claude stepped unseen be- 
hind a fodder stack near the house. At the 
unexpected taunting cheer, three or four 
young mountaineers came out into the yard. 
The riders had dismounted and were hitch- 
ing their mules to the fence. Then, unin- 
vited, they came up to the door of the cabin 
and passed the bottle in full view of all in- 
side. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


157 


“Lord o’ mercy, ” exclaimed the old 
mother, “hit’s them Lawsons.” 

Minnie’s eyes flashed and May’s lofty 
countenance lowered. 

Old Dad Wilson’s towering form ap- 
peared in the doorway. “Men,” he said, 
“we’ll have no licker here to-night; an’ ef 
that’s you, Lige Lawson, we’ll not have you. 
Git — ” The last sentence he never finished, 
for a stone from the hand of red Eli Lawson 
landed with tremendous force in his face. 
Like a mighty oak, he fell backward to the 
floor. Over the prostrate giant rushed the 
drunken brutes ; and behind them came a 
fiery-eyed lad with a big black Colt’s in his 
hand. The merry-makers were terrified. 
Through the kitchen door they vanished — 
all but May who escaped through the only 
window. 

“Gimme a buss, little gal,” said red Eli, 
approaching the horror-stricken Minnie. 
But that coveted prize he never gained. 
The fiery-eyed youth stepped before him at 
this juncture and sent a forty-five calibre 
bullet through his body. 

“Hell,” yelled old Lige, raising his un- 
steady arm and firing at Claude. But Lige 
was too drunk for an accurate marksman, 
and his bullet went point blank. Before he 
could draw the trigger again, the big black 
gun was again brought into execution, and 
old Lige died in the house of his life-long 
foe. The two others, Rile and the stranger, 


158 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

rushed again over the prostrate giant, this 
time to life and liberty. As quickly as pos- 
sible they mounted their mules and dashed 
away in the moonlight. 

The husking bee was now over ; the dance 
was over; the fight was over; the lives of 
two of the bad Lawsons were over, and a 
courtship recently begun, too, was over. 
Old Dad was nursed back to life, and his 
injuries proved to be nothing worse than a 
badly smashed nose and a few loose teeth. 

Next morning the bodies were carried 
away to the Lawson cabin. Late in the 
same day they were buried, both in one 
grave, with all the simple solemnities of the 
mountains. 


CHAPTER IV. 


week later Claude came to Minnie’s 



home again. He had had his trial, 


and of course, had come clear. Old 
Dad was able to be out again; and George 
May had not been heard of since the never- 
to-be-forgotten husking bee. The moun- 
tains were not for him. 

It was the first of November, and the 
Election excitement was getting intense in 
the hills. The old mother received the boy 
warmly, but could not say a word. She only 
looked at him kindly, while a torrent of 
tears rolled down her furrowed cheeks, and 
patted him gently on the shoulder. 

“Can you ever forgive me?” asked the 
girl. “Speak, dear, and let me know the 
truth. Oh, Fm so ashamed. I am not wor- 
thy to wash your feet. Tell me quick.” 

The boy only laughed in reply. “Come,” 
he said “and let’s me and you walk up to 
the Divide — the mornin’ is so nice.” 

Without a word, she flew to his side and, 
hand in hand, they climbed the steep spur. 
Nearly all the leaves had fallen. A purple 
haze, the herald of Indian summer, hung 
over the hills. At the top of the spur they 
found a seat on a mossy knoll and sat for a 
time with dreaming eyes. A squirrel barked 


160 A MOONSHINE ITS FOLLY 


hoarsely up the Divide and a flock of crows 
flew awkwardly over them. 

“We’ve been up here together before,’’ 
said the girl, “but not until now did I know 
I had a boy with me who would risk his life 
for me.” 

“Darlin’,” returned the boy, “I’d resk any- 
thing fer ye. What’s my life without ye, 
anyway? I jest brought ye up here to ask 
ye that old question you’ve heered so often 
— wont ye marry me?” 

“I wanted to ask you ,” said the girl, “be- 
cause I’ve treated you so mean. Yes, I’m 
not worthy of you, but you’re mine and I’m 
yours — yours always.” 

“I’m happy now,” said the boy. 

“Kiss me, dear,” said the girl, and she put 
her arms, around his neck and looked into 
his love-lit eyes. 

“Let’s go,” he said. He got up and gave 
her his hand. Laughingly he helped her 
down the steep path to the cabin, and their 
smiling faces told the old, old story to the 
old parents and made them happy. 

A few days later, in the full glories of In- 
dian summer, the old “Hardshell” preacher 
came and made them one. 


THE SPOOK CHIMNEY 


THE SPOOK CHIMNEY. 


A LL evening I had been lazily lounging 
in the hammock on my friend’s porch, 
smoking and watching the saw mill 
hands hauling slabs and dust to be burned. 
I had tried to read several times, but as 
often, I would fall to dozing and drop my 
book ; therefore, I gave that up as a bad job, 
and gave my undivided attention to my 
pipe and the mill hands. The porch was 
pleasant, very cool and shady, and the ham- 
mock was exceedingly comfortable; so I 
found it hard work, indeed, to prevent my- 
self from falling into the deepest sleep. 

The house was old-fashioned and large, 
being one of the big, roomy cabins built by 
the early Pioneers. It contained several 
large smoky rooms, with unusually high 
ceiling festooned with great swinging 
masses of cobwebs and soot. Since I first 
came to visit my friend and cousin, who 
was occupying the house temporarily, I 
had been inside the kitchen but once. The 
weird, dark interior of that old room had 
left a strange, unpleasant impression on my 
mind, which I was utterly unable to cast 
off. I had always been a strenuous objec- 
tor to a belief in the supernatural, so I was 
not willing to believe that the house was 


AND OTHER STORIES 


163 


haunted. But, in spite of all my material- 
istic views, I continued to rehearse to my- 
self all the stories of goblins, spooks and 
fairies I had ever read; and the longer I 
pondered over them, the more real they 
became. As I had always hated superstition 
with so merciless a hatred, I was getting 
angry with myself for allowing such silly 
thoughts to enter my mind. But how was 
I to help it? I had become almost unable 
to think of anything else but wizards, de- 
mons, ghouls, and the Evil Eye. 

The sun was shining under the eaves of 
the porch on a portion of my body, pro 
ducing, I thought, a faint, dizzy sensa- 
tion in my feet and legs. I think I had lain 
so long in one position, that my lower ex- 
tremities had become slightly numbed ; 
but, nevertheless, I thought it due to the 
sun, as it was shining very warmly on my 
temporarily paralyzed limbs. 

Again I began to doze, and my confused 
thoughts developed my over-wrought fancy 
into what seemed unmistakably real. All 
manner of strange, ugly creatures filled 
that old kitchen, it seemed, from floor to 
rafters. Big reptile-like birds without 
feathers, and enormous bats flitted through 
the smoky atmosphere, uttering a loud, un- 
harmonious kind of song somewhat like the 
creaking of rusty machinery. 

When I woke, the sun was shining full 
in my face; and, for a time, I was unable 


164 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

to move my feet or arms. Of course, when 
I had recovered the proper use of my 
limbs, I got up ; but, by some strange in- 
fluence, I possessed an almost irresistible 
desire to climb the old kitchen chimney. 
Why such an insane fancy had entered my 
head, I could not tell; but I imagined it to 
be the influence of some genie or goblin, 
which I was now sure existed in or about 
the house. I meant to say nothing about 
my foolish design to my cousin’s wife. I 
would try to be contented until she went 
to the post-office for the mail; and, during 
her absence, I would climb the chimney. 
But, in my plans I was to be thwarted. She 
asked me to accompany her to the office, 
and insisted on my going. I was in a di- 
lemma. I could not possibly refuse going 
on such a silly excuse, for I was ashamed to 
tell her of my preposterous purpose; but, 
silly as it was, it was the greatest task to 
refrain from rushing madly up the log wall 
by the grimy flue. With the greatest re- 
luctance, I walked to the office with my 
hostess; but I do not think I spoke while 
on the way. Mad as was my desire to 
climb, I dreaded it more than any adven- 
ture I had ever undertaken ; yet there was 
an unpleasant something like a painful 
duty that goaded me on toward my pur- 
pose. 

When we had started back home, I 
could linger with my friendly companion 


AND OTHER STORIES 


165 


no longer. With a mad dash, I made 
toward the house and reached it in a few 
minutes. Straightway, I went to the 
kitchen to begin my climb. The chimney 
was built close up to the wall on the inside 
of the room, so it would be no trouble to 
climb up, as the cracks would give me a 
fairly good ladder. There was a dark aper- 
ture several feet in diameter around the old 
chimney, the sooty ceiling seeming afraid 
to touch it. Without hesitation, I started 
up. I ascended very rapidly, and in a few 
moments, passed the joists into the dark, 
musty garret. This queer room was very 
tall in the middle, for the gable was un- 
usually steep. When I had gotten well up 
from the ceiling, I began to feel very sus- 
picious and uneasy. Looking down, I 
thought I must be at a frightful altitude, as 
high as Washington's monument, perhaps. 
I was frightened, and tried to return, but it 
was impossible. I was being propelled up- 
wards by some unseen force. My move- 
ments had all become involuntary, and I 
could no more have prevented my steps 
than I could the beating of my heart. Un- 
der the roof a pigeon door let in a little 
light — just enough to enable me to see the 
chimney and a few other objects very in- 
distinctly. Directly above me, and barely 
in reach of my hand, the chimney tapered 
abruptly, the shoulder being somewhat like 
that of a bottle. Still involuntarily, I put 


166 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


my hand on the shoulder and felt some very 
cold lingers. Immediately a very large, 
black genie, with a white spot on the top of 
his hairless head, looked down into my 
eyes. Still against my will* I was drawn 
upward by the same irresistible force until 
I was face to face with the spook. Again 
I looked down, and everything was pitchy 
darkness. A rafter leaned very invitingly 
nearby, so I grasped it eagerly with one 
hand and held it tightly. The genie was vis- 
ible only from his waist, the rest of his 
body being hidden in the chimney. From 
all indications, he was a prisoner. 

When I saw his helpless and equally 
painful position, my heart was touched 
with pity for even this ugly spook. The 
chimney had certainly been built on his 
body. After contemplating his diabolical 
features for a while, I ventured to address 
him : 

“My friend,” said I, “you seem to be in 
a very painful situation ; but pardon me for 
speaking a few words of sympathy, for I 
am sure your spookship could free yourself 
should you be so minded.” 

The genie raised his head for a moment 
and looked straight into my face. He was 
so ugly and misshapen that it made me 
shudder to look at him ; but, despite his 
frightful-looking countenance, I was 
touched with pity. He was sorely in need 
of some relief. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


167 


“Poor old spook,” I thought, “I wonder 
if you would as much as thank me, if I 
should release you?” 

The reptile-like, featherless birds flitted 
fearlessly about me, even lighting on my 
shoulders. I had never seen any like them, 
but they corresponded exactly to my ideas 
as to how prehistoric creatures looked. 
When I would move very suddenly, they 
would fly off through the darkness, uttering 
that strange grating song : 

“Murky and a-lurky, darky oh, starky, 

Rash, crash, boodle um boo.” 

When these strange songsters had disap- 
peared in the darkness, I again made bold 
to speak to the spook. 

“My friend,” I continued, “is there any 
way in which I could relieve you from your 
prison? You seem to be very uncomfort- 
ably situated.” 

With an effort, he again raised his head 
and looked at me. I think my countenance 
was far from good while I was being con- 
templated by this frightful-looking fellow. 
I trembled so violently, that I feared I 
would lose my grip on the rafter. Soon his 
lips began to move hesitatingly, as if he was 
going to speak. 

“Speak, kind goblin, spook or genie, or 
whatever may be your name,” I said, “don’t 
be afraid. I want to aid you, if I can.” 

“Well,” he said, — his voice was very 
harsh and squeaking — “if you will do as I 


168 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

tell you, you can relieve me ; and, by so do- 
ing, you may bring a priceless blessing on 
yourself. But first, you must promise that 
you will not be afraid to do as I bid you.” 

"I give you my promise,” said I. 

“ Listen then to a little history,” he con- 
tinued. “I was at one time the slave of a 
wicked wizard, who built this house. I am 
the genie of the woods, and my brother, who 
is a prisoner on the other side of the chim- 
ney, is the genie of the river. Both of us 
were this wicked wizard’s slaves, and now 
both of us are prisoners of his chimney. We 
always went hand in hand ; and as long as 
we were thus united, he could work any mira- 
cle with us ; but when the clasp was broken, 
we became almost powerless. Our master 
used us in his devilish art until he was about 
to be hanged. He saw that he would be 
forced to give up his wicked profession or 
die on the gallows ; so, in order that no one 
else might use us, he separated us and im- 
prisoned us in this chimney.” 

He dropped his head languidly as if he 
was going to expire. Then I looked around 
the corner of the old chimney to make sure 
he was telling the truth about his brother, 
the water genie; and, sure enough, he had 
said truly. A similar looking spook was like- 
wise a victim on the left hand side of the 
flue. 

“Now,” he said, “if you will re-unite our 
hands, that will restore our power to us. 


AND OTHER STORIES 


169 


and we will be able to escape. But listen, 
now, and take heed to what I tell you. Be 
very careful that each of our hands do not 
touch you at the same time. If you should 
be so careless as to let that happen, our 
magic would be conducted to you, and you 
would become a magician. You must not 
place your hand between ours so that each 
of ours will touch yours; for, in that case, 
your hand would act as a connection, and 
you would become possessed of a spell 
which you could never be able to cast off. 
But, if you do as I tell you, you shall be 
able to free us; and as your reward, you 
shall have the good fortune to be able to 
resist all charms and spells that others may 
try to put upon you. With our clasp broken, 
we had just sufficient power to induce you 
to climb the chimney. We chose you, be- 
cause you are an unbeliever in the Black 
Art. If you had been a believer, you would 
have been too timid. Our slight power 
would not have been sufficient to force you 
up. On the other hand, you would have run 
away from this house. After you have re- 
leased us, you need never fear the super- 
natural ; for it never harms anybody except 
those who believe it.” 

I was bold enough to take hold of the 
genie’s hand and draw it toward me. It 
was icy cold, and I shivered as I held it; 
but I could not shrink from my task. I 
lay it on a projecting stone of the chimney, 


170 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


palm upward, then took the hand of his 
brother and dropped it into it. In an in- 
stant they were united in a firm clasp. 
Their color immediately began to pale, and 
before I could have counted ten, they had 
grown slightly transparent. The strange, 
reptile-like birds returned with a mighty 
rush, darting hither and thither around my 
head, uttering their weird song louder than 
ever. 

“Murkey and a-lurky, darky oh, starky, 
Rash, crash, boodle um boo” 
they repeated over and over, each repeti- 
tion growing five times louder than the pre- 
ceding one. I was fairly deafened with 
the unpleasant song, and totally blinded by 
the dust they were raising. In a minute 
or so, the song suddenly ceased. When I 
had rubbed a quantity of dust and grime 
out of my eyes, I looked for the genii, but 
they were gone. During that disgusting 
hullabaloo they had vanished. 

Sowly I began to make my return back- 
ward down the wall by the chimney. I 
found it very difficult to keep from falling; 
and I think it took me three times as long 
to make my descent as it did to go up. 

When I landed on the kitchen floor, my 
cousin’s wife was very much surprised, and 
I believe a bit frightened to see me coming 
down from the garret all covered with dust 
and soot. I explained to her that I had 
chased an enormous rat into the loft and 


AND OTHER STORIES 


171 


that I had been lying for him a long time, 
trying to shoot him. She looked as if she 
doubted my veracity ; and several times dur- 
ing the remainder of my visit, she asked me 
to explain why I had deserted her so rudely 
as we were returning from the post-office. 
Consequently, as I never could think of a 
reasonable story to tell her, I have written 
this chiefly to satisfy her curiosity. 












9 
















the legend of 

OAKVIEW 


THE LEGEND OF OAKVIEW. 


D OWN in Virginia, through a certain 
county of that romantic old state, 
stretches a wide, fertile valley; and 
down this valley flows a beautiful stream, 
twisting itself in snake-like coils between 
labyrinths of verdant alders and willows. 
Whoever journeys up or down this valley 
can not fail to notice the numerous cosy 
farmhouses standing well back from the 
highway, with vine-covered porches and an 
air of peaceful comfort about them. Stout, 
healthy farmers may be seen sitting on 
these shady porches, puffing their corn-cob 
pipes or playing with the babies, while the 
housewives are busy at their numerous 
household chores. But none of these, how- 
ever, can claim the traveler’s special atten- 
tion. 

Away up on an overlooking river bluff 
stands a strange old structure which might 
cause him to stop and wonder. It is no 
model of architecture, but is just a plain old 
stone mansion with steep gables covered 
with various climbing vines. 

Let us take a stroll around the old home- 
stead and see for ourselves why the place 
could deserve such attention : First we come 


AND OTHER STORIES 


175 


to the entrance which is two tall rough stone 
pillars standing some fifteen feet apart. 
From this old gateway, leading well up to 
the porch, spreads a broad gravel path ; and 
on either side stand tall oak trees which 
arch their luxurious branches over the path- 
way, forming a complete roof over it. 
Around the old building is a grove of stouter 
oaks growing close up to the walls, and 
hanging their friendly boughs over the de- 
cayed roof. 

The hall door stands ajar and seems to be 
inviting us to enter its dreary chambers, 
whose sole inhabitants are gaunt, giant rats. 
We are at once convinced that many times 
has this old portal been forced back and 
forth by idle winds since any human foot 
has crossed its threshold; and that many 
have been the blasts that have whistled 
around those bleak walls since any human 
found a home therein. The panes have all 
been shattered. Directly beneath each old 
window a crystal heap has been formed by 
the falling glass. The sash is green with 
moss ; everything has a weird, ghostly look 
and a mouldy smell. The dark interior 
gazes down on us through the cheerless 
apertures with such a gloomy visage that 
we should not be at all surprised if some 
ghoul or demon should insert a skeleton 
hand through one of those wrecked win- 
dows and beckon us off his premises. 
Therefore, with little reluctance, after tak- 


176 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 

in g a circuit around the “haunted home- 
stead, we turn our backs on it, but more 
than once we look back to see if we be pur- 
sued by a ghost. 

We shall now revert our story and go 
back some four score and ten years to re- 
count some of the history of this old house. 

* * * * * * 

About the year 1820, when England’s bit- 
ter hatred for this country — the result of the 
War of 1812 — had somewhat subsided, there 
sailed to Virginia, from London, a certain 
Sir Edward Palmer, a man of considerable 
means and a small family, having only one 
son. This son, Thomas, was well educated 
and was extremely fond of country society, 
having spent a portion of his life in rural 
England. Growing tired of city life, the old 
gentleman had decided to sail to Virginia 
where he would become a planter and end 
his days in the domestic quietude of the 
country. 

Landing in Norfolk, he left his wife and 
son in that city and proceeded to the graz- 
ing section of the state, where he found what 
he was looking for in the plantation of Oak- 
view. The owner, a Mr. Thompson, wished 
to go to the city where he might give his 
children better educational advantages than 
the country afforded, so he sold the old 
manor and plantation to the Englishman. 
A deed was at once drawn up, conveying 
plantation, slaves and all the farm property 


AND OTHER STORIES 


177 


to the city gentleman, and soon the former 
owner was comfortably located in Rich- 
mond. 

Sir Edward took possession, and, despite 
his city notions, the farming went on ad- 
mirably well; for he kept the old overseer, 
and, fortunately, the slaves were faithful 
and obedient. Young Thomas took wonder- 
fully to his new home. All the neighbors 
soon admired him. They liked those good 
English people almost as much as they had 
liked Mr. Thompson. 

Before the Palmers had been in Virginia 
a year, the young man met Mildred Stuart,, 
the daughter of a rich neighboring planter. 
She had just returned from college, and was, 
extremely beautiful and equally sweet-tem- 
pered, so it can not be wondered at if she- 
was her father's idol. The young English- 
man was charmed with this Virginia belle 
with every quality of the Southern lady, 
and he was not at all slow In declaring his 
love to her. She received him coldly, but 
respectfully at first, but her polite respect 
for him soon changed to afifection, and in 
the course of a year they were engaged. 
The wedding was a merry affair. Con- 
ducted in pure old Virginia style, it must 
have looked ridiculous to the old English 
parents who were to receive this planter's 
daughter as their child. 

When the wedding was over, the young 
man and his bride started on their honey- 


178 A MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 

moon trip. Going first to Norfolk, they 
visited some friends there; then, boarding a 
ship, they took passage for the groom’s 
former home — London. For half a year 
they sojourned in the land of his birth, and 
then, with light hearts the two made their 
return voyage. On reaching home, they set- 
tled down to the quiet life of the plantation. 
Time flew by on lightning wings for two 
years, and then a baby brightened the old 
manor. Stella was the name they gave the 
child who was the very picture of intelli- 
gence. Very rapidly she grew in strength 
and beauty. Every rose that bloomed around 
left its color in her cheeks; the lily left its 
whiteness in her forehead, and both left 
their odor on her breath. Her eyes were 
the color of the sky, and her hair was like 
threads of gold. She was the angel, aye, 
the shining light of Oakview ; but, as we 
shall see, she was needed -to shine away the 
gloom which more than once hung like a 
dark shadow over their home, for a succes- 
sion of sad deaths were to occur therein. 

The good old English woman had for a 
long time been in delicate health ; and in the 
autumn of the tenth year of their residence 
in the Old Dominion, when the forest had 
put on its variegated colors, she fell asleep. 
She was buried on a grassy knoll close at 
hand, beneath a clump of willow trees, and 
ere long winter spread a spotless blanket 
over her and the wind mourned round the 


AND OTHER STORIES 179 

plantation a funeral dirge. A sad home it 
was for months thereafter, but the gay, 
sweet, innocent child laughed the grief 
away. All were happy again — at least, the 
young parents and the child — but it was but 
short-lived. Before the spring had chased 
the ice from the hills Sir Edward, the be- 
reaved old widower, contracted pneumonia 
from a sudden change of weather, and, alter 
a few days’ illness, succumbed to the dis- 
ease. With reverent hands, his body was 
laid by that of his wife, and soft tendrils of 
grass and tender creeping plants grew over 
their graves. The young man and his wife 
were crushed by the shock, and to add to 
their troubles, Stella’s health was failing. 
The rosy hue had left her cheeks and the 
cherry had departed from her lips. Her 
round, full form was becoming lean and 
spare, and a slight cough was setting up. 
The doctor was sent for, but he shook his 
head mournfully and said that consumption 
was in an advanced stage. So the weary 
months rolled on, and the girl still grew 
weaker. The sad parents could see the wil- 
lows beckoning their child to a bed beneath 
their drooping boughs. When the red roses 
were blooming and nodding their heavy 
heads in the breeze, the flower sweeter than 
any of them withered away and died. She 
was buried by her grandparents, and now 
the grief of the young father and mother 
knew no bounds. Neighbors visited them 


180 A MOONSHINER’S FOLLY 


and tried to comfort them, but they refused 
to be comforted, and would not leave the old 
mansion even for an hour. No solace could 
they nor would they find. At last friends 
ceased to visit them. The old overseer left, 
and nearly all the slaves were set free. One 
morning it was announced by one of the 
remaining slaves that “marster” and “mis- 
sus” had disappeared. All the country 
round was searched, but they were not 
found. Never was the slightest rumor cir- 
culated as to where they had gone. They 
could not have been carried off by Indians, 
for they had long ago ceased coming into 
the valley. Not one had been seen there 
within the last ten years. They could not 
have been murdered by some offended slave, 
for the slaves were left to do as they 
pleased, and never had the slightest cause 
for offense. Their disappearance has ever 
remained a mystery, and old darkies firmly 
declare that they have seen the weeping 
couple walking about the place at night. 
The wild ghost stories of the Negroes, told 
of the “Lost Couple,” have furnished amuse- 
ment to many a child and have been the 
means of entertainment around many a 
cheerful fire. 

For years these stories grew and were 
circulated among the darkies; and many, 
too, were the whites who would not deny 
their truth. Then came the great Civil War. 
At its close, the haunted homestead was far 


AND OTHER STORIES 


181 


more fortunate than any of its neighbors. 
While others were being ruined and demol- 
ished, the haunted house was unmolested. 

During the painful period of Reconstruc- 
tion, when Black Dominion seemed inevit- 
able in the South, these wild stories grew 
more wild and terrible than ever. The Ne- 
groes declared that they had seen lights 
shining through the windows, and that they 
had seen shrouded horses with breath of 
flame standing under the trees around the 
old mansion. They also told of seeing ter- 
rible beings of mighty stature, clad in the 
most grotesque robes, and terminating at 
the top in a peak like a church spire. 

The truth was that the ill-treated citizens 
of that section belonged to the Invisible 
Empire, and were holding their weird meet- 
ings in that dreary old house. They knew 
the reputation the place bore among the 
darkies and took advantage of their super- 
stition by allowing themselves to be seen by 
them occasionally. 

That romantic old order, regarded by 
most people as evil, has long since passed 
away. Good or bad, it frightened the idle 
Negroes into submission to their old mas- 
ters and proved a priceless blessing to the 
overpowered but unconquered South. 

The old state has built back again on her 
ruins ; but vague stories are still equally 
prevalent among the white people and the 
black concerning the old homestead and its 
lost owners. 


MOUNTAIN WORSHIPERS 


MOUNTAIN WORSHIPERS. 


T HERE are no other people on the 
earth who enjoy going to church any 
more than do the mountaineers of 
the South. Mountain parents often hire 
their children to be good with the promise 
that they shall go to “preachin' ” on Sunday. 
As Saturday evening approaches, the little 
urchins leap with joy at the thought of the 
morrow. To-morrow they will put on their 
best clothes and go with their fathers and 
mothers to hear the old elder tell the story 
-of a child who came to earth long ago to 
be nailed to the cross. And the old as well 
as the young look forward to the coming 
Sabbath with a child's pride. Often the old 
and infirm will walk a dozen miles to hear 
an hour's discourse from their beloved pas- 
tor, and then walk back home for dinner. 

I remember being present at one of these 
gatherings, and it was there, I believe, that 
I saw an earnest spirit of religion. It was in 
mid-summer, and the God whom they truly 
worshiped had blessed them with a perfect 
day. The place of worship was on a little 
wooded island in the middle of a clear 
mountain stream. On either side of the islet 
the crystal water leaped over the stones and 


AND OTHER STORIES' 


185 


made a musical sound which was restful and 
soothing to the ear. The outdoor church 
was a grove of birches and hemlocks walled 
in by a hedge of rhododendrons and roofed 
by a tangled growth of wild grapevines. 
The old preacher had already arrived and 
was seated by a small table. On the table 
reposed his well-worn hymn-book, and in 
his hand he held his little black Bible. He 
was waiting for the crowd to gather. He 
reverently turned the pages of his beloved 
book, and then his lips moved slowly as he 
read. Laying his open Bible on the table 
he carefully placed his hymn-book on its 
soiled pages and began to look over his au- 
dience. Old dames puffed their pipes and 
talked pleasantly with one another. The 
rich aroma of the tobacco reminded me of 
incense burnt in the ancient temples. 
Feathered songsters flitted and chirped in 
the fairy church; and, so deep and tranquil 
had been my meditation, that I imagined 
each to be an angel. 

The preacher rose, and after a few words 
that were nearly inaudible, started a hymn. 
He seemed to wear the very countenance of 
Christ. The sublime, peaceful smile which 
was upon his face, I have never been able 
to see again. His long patriarchal beard 
and those heavenly features caused me to 
look up to him as a being not belonging to 
this world. 

His introductory remarks were low, deep 


186 A MOON SHINER’S FOLLY 


and rich. Like music, they fell upon my 
ear. As he proceeded, his voice grew 
mighty, but full of tender appeal and plead- 
ing. The birds sat still on their perch over- 
head and the slight summer breeze seemed 
suddenly to stop. My blood became as cold 
water as he gradually dropped to whispering 
accents. I looked around. The crowd was 
petrified for a moment, and then such a 
burst of tears as that which followed I have 
never witnessed since. 

In his mountain dialect he painted to his 
enraptured congregation the beauties of a 
well-spent life and the horrors of a wicked 
one. In closing, he spoke in pathetic terms 
of the beloved dead — those who had de- 
parted. The mothers who had buried chil- 
dren could contain themselves no longer. 
With clapping hands, they fearlessly ex- 
pressed their happiness and submission. 
The preacher closed his sermon, another 
hymn was sung and the service was over. 
“ ’Tis God's own temple," I said as the au- 
dience was breaking up. 






















































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